Your life can look perfect and still feel dangerous to your body. That is the thread we pull today with Dr. Jordin Wiggins, a naturopathic doctor and author of The Pink Canary, as we talk about the quiet signals women ignore until they cannot ignore them anymore: numbness, chronic stress, “functional” burnout, low libido, and that haunting sense that joy has gone missing.
We dig into anhedonia, the inability to feel pleasure, and why it often gets mislabeled when you are still performing at work, keeping the family running, and smiling through it. Jordin explains how the nervous system and brain respond when you do not feel safe, including how pleasure centers can shut down under prolonged stress. We also talk about why hormones and antidepressants can help some people while still not addressing the real root cause for others, especially when the problem lives inside a relationship system that is extracting from you.
From there, we name what is often left unsaid: coercive control. Jordin breaks down “super traits” like above-average empathy, loyalty, forgiveness, and tolerance, and how those strengths can make high-achieving, people-pleasing women more vulnerable to manipulative power-and-control dynamics. We share practical starting points from Jordin’s “pleasure path,” including small pleasure practices that rebuild presence and help you re-center your own needs without guilt.
If you are ready to feel like yourself again, listen through and then check out Dr. Jordin’s work, including The Pink Canary, her Pleasure Principles Podcast, and her Pleasure Path Substack visit her website at: https://www.thepleasurecollective.com/
Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs it, and leave a review so more women can find these conversations.
To download a free chapter of host Sylvia Worsham’s bestselling book, In Faith, I Thrive: Finding Joy Through God’s Masterplan, purchase any of her products, or book a call with her, visit her website at www.sylviaworsham.com
Transcript:
If you’ve ever struggled with fear, doubt, or worry, and wondering what your true purpose was all about, then this podcast is for you. In this show, your host, Sylvia Worsham, will interview only experts and ordinary people that have created extraordinary lives. So here’s your host, Sylvia Worsham.
Hey librarians, it’s Sylvia Worsham. Welcome to Release That Reveal Purpose. And today is Dr. Jordan Wiggins. She had the perfect life from the outside. Marriage, family. But through it all, she was in a narcissistic, abusive relationship. And she’s here to discuss those dark chapters, but more importantly, the findings that she had as she journeyed in this relationship and the wisdom she gained about the nervous system, about you know, doing the right things for women is not doing the right things. Sometimes it’s paying attention to that physiological side of our body that’s saying this is dangerous for us. This is not what we’re meant to do for ourselves. We’ve got to really turn inward, really understand what we are looking at. And then from that space, then we can start to heal. So without further ado, Dr. Jordan, thank you so much for joining us on Release Out Reveal Purpose.
Thank you for having me, Sylvia.
It’s a pleasure to have you. And I know you have quite a couple of dark chapters to share with us and the wisdom you you shared, uh you gained along the way. So please honor us, if you will, with that amazing story of transformation.
Sure. So I feel like I’ve had you caught you call them dark chapters, I call them pivots, maybe. Um a couple points in my life where I’ll walk you through sort of the first one.
I was raised to be a good girl, hardworking, Catholic, forgiving. You smile, you know, small town, everybody knows everybody. And it’s, I don’t know, it’s kind of raising this bubble, but it was you you checked boxes, right? You excelled at sports, you volunteered, you got a pre-med undergraduate degree. And then there was sort of this time where I wanted to be a conventional medical doctor, but I was shadowing conventional medical doctors during my pre-med degree. And it was just this complete cognitive dissonance of this is what I thought I would be doing, like helping people heal, getting to the root of what’s going on. And this is the reality of our healthcare system in the way it is. Uh, and I really wanted to help women because I had struggled with hormonal issues and going on birth control made me depressed and insane. I would have my period three weeks a month. So, anyways, I had this sort of, I call it a pivot or call it a crisis of consciousness at the time. It never, never feels like a pivot when you’re going through it. It does feel like a dark chapter where I wanted to become a naturopathic doctor. And this was not accepted. We’re going back like 20 years now. This was not as even as accepted naturopathic medicine, functional medicine. It was not even a as much of a well-known thing back then. And I sort of decided like I want to choose myself, like I don’t want to check a box for once or do what’s expected of me. I want to do what I want to do. And I felt called into that next chapter, which was when I built this amazing women’s health clinic, and from the outside looking in business was booming. People were flying to see me, to come to my clinic to be treated by me. I was by all stretches of the imagination, you know, had a new house, had my dream car, had again ticking these boxes that I learned at such a young age to do all the things that you should do. And I wasn’t happy. And I kept blaming myself, kept looking internally, like, what professional development do I need to do? What’s wrong with me? Like, why am I coming home with nothing left in the tank? Why would I rather be at work? And I thought I was burnt out. I was running a big business, and the the way the model that it was set out, it required me to work like 60, 70 hour weeks, and it was just it was crushing me. So there was sort of this personal dark chapter and a professional dark chapter. And the professional one was I felt out of alignment once again. And I thought, here I am. I’ve built everything that I’ve asked for. I’ve checked every box that I ever thought I could check, you know, salary, all these things, but I’m not happy. I’m waking up with night sweats. I’m I had adult acne. My hair was falling out. I was so stressed. You know, my team was growing, and I didn’t go to school for business or HR management, right? I went to school to learn how to be a naturopathic doctor. So I felt I was rushing to yoga or missing the gym, and I was not eating as healthy. So I it was this complete misalignment for how I thought I wanted my life to look and how I was actually living it, and then what I was telling my patients to do every day. And then that was being reflected back to me by my patients. They were saying, you know,
I have everything, I should be happy, but I don’t feel happy. I’m not as happy as I should be. I go on vacation with my family and I’m snapping at them, or I feel like I’m out of my body, like I’m watching it from above, but I’m not there, I’m not present, I’m not present with my husband. You know, our intimacy, our relationship has gone down the toilet. We’re just sort of roommates, we’re going through the motions. So what I was experiencing personally was also what my clients were experiencing. And I have learned, and I wrote a book about this, The Pink Canary, that what I was experiencing and what my clients were experiencing was anhedonia. It’s the inability to feel pleasure and joy. It’s a diagnostic criteria of major depressive disorder. And it was interesting because for myself and my clients, we were like we fit some of the criteria of depression, but it didn’t really feel like like classic depression. And my clients that or my patients that did try antidepressants didn’t really work, didn’t really solve the problem for them. And I do not want to come across that I am medication shaming or anything. If we need the antidepressants, you take the antidepressants. If you, you know, we you need to do what you need to do for you as an individual. Where I was finding the issue was is that my clients were going to providers and just being dismissed, like when it was actually their hormones, or they were actually having issues in their relationship, which that’s my personal dark chapter, and I’m gonna get to it in a second, um, because that was like me. So we’re so often dismissed with a mental health diagnosis without the root cause being identified, and and this is why people were flying to see me and still see me to this day, because we are looking like, and I think kind of hormones have become the new antidepressant for women. It’s just oh, fix your hormones and everything’s gonna be fine. And I’m a I prescribe hormones, I’m a firm believer that we need hormones and women need more hormones and they need them earlier than they have been prescribed in the past. So again, I’m not saying avoid that by any means, but we need to do what’s best for us as the individual. But then what happens when it doesn’t work? So I’ve had, I was at this place, had everything. Life looked good on the outside, but underneath I’ve felt like that duck. You know, if you see a duck on the pond, they look like they’re just gliding across the water and everything looks great. But underneath their little legs are, you know, we’re trying to keep up. We’re crying alone in the bathroom at the end of the day, so no one can hear us. But then we show up to work with a smile on our face, and you know, our friend calls and we’re planning something. So this real disconnect of how I was presenting outwardly and how I was feeling internally was going on once again. And then I so that’s when I wrote the pink canary and I started the pleasure collective, which was for women who had it all like all on the outside, but they were really struggling with like depression, burnout, and their marriages were suffering because there was um this anhedonia, this lack of joy. And so when we don’t feel pleasure in the day-to-day, we’re also not feeling it in the bedroom. So that’s why a lot of women were coming to me. They’re saying, I just have no libido, I don’t know what’s going on, I don’t know what’s wrong with me when, and I talk about this in the Pink Canary, but the pleasure centers in our brain actually shut off when we are
burnt out. And they’ve done MRIs so we can see that when we don’t feel safe, when we have too much going on, our pleasure centers turn off. So nothing is as pleasurable. And that’s why I’d hear, you know, I’m just not as happy as I used to be. Like, I don’t know what’s wrong with me, or even touch doesn’t feel as pleasurable. Sometimes our husbands kind of give us the ick when our pleasure centers are off. And and that can be an easy one to blame on our hormones. But there’s actually something deeper. So then for the next like seven years, eight years of my career, I was really helping women with depression, burnout, hormonal issues, and libido, helping them like feel alive, feel happy, and reconnect their relationships. But it was very interesting because I was focusing on what I was trained to do. I was focusing on the individual and what was affecting her and how we could optimize things on the cellular level and work on her beliefs around pleasure and sex and that she deserves it, and that she doesn’t have to sacrifice first to feel good. Because this that’s that message that the good girls have internalized. Laundry needs to be folded, everything needs to be done on our to-do list before we can have fun or feel good, right? Pleasure is always last on the list. So I was helping them flip that, but I was missing something in this my next book that I’m writing, and this has to do with my own personal dark chapter, my next kind of pivot.
So by looking at the like the woman, the individual, my client, my patient, myself, and examining her and examining her beliefs and examining how she interacts with the world, I was missing something massive. And that was the relational system that she was existing in, and how her traits and her worldview um set her up to sort of be in an extractive relationship, sometimes even bordering on abusive. So I’ll talk about my own story so you can see. So during all this, I kept blaming myself. I kept thinking, there’s more, you know, there’s something wrong with me. Why, why am I not happy? Why is nothing good enough? Why am I not sleeping? You know, do I do I need progesterone? Do you know you’re going down the list, right? And you’re doing absolutely everything that you can going to therapy individually, going to couples therapy. And when you have super traits, and this is Sandra Brown’s work, and this is something that I have, this is something that my clients have, and it’s you’re when you’re that, you know, high-achieving, caring, people-pleasing woman, you probably have one or more super traits, and they are having above average empathy, loyalty, forgiveness, hard work, tolerance. So that means that we give more than we ever get back, and we tolerate more than we should, to the point that it’s harmful sometimes, because, and this is the part that I don’t think a lot of people understand, but being in a relationship where you feel lonely and you don’t feel safe and supported, it’s the equivalent of smoking um 15 cigarettes a day. So people think like they we don’t seem to see the health impact. I did because I was kind of working on the relational side and the health side. Um, but it’s like drinking and smoking every day. We know that’s not healthy for us. Being in a relationship that is not mutually beneficial is not healthy. So when you have these super traits, you are prone to not only like overgiving, and when you it’s like I like to think about it like a bank account. Like if you’re always putting money in and somebody else is always taking money out, eventually it’s a problem. Like it’s going to cause resentment and issues long term. So I realized well, the super trait studies, because I I was like, why can’t I get, you know, why is this so hard? Why can’t I get this right? Why I’ve got everything. Why am I not happy? I’ve got a nanny, I have help, I’ve got, you know, career success. I love my job. Like, what’s going on? And what I didn’t realize is that having these super traits sets you up to being in coercively controlling relationships. And what no one looks at, and I’m talking like, I’ve probably spent a hundred thousand dollars in therapy and coaching throughout this time to try to help myself and even just continuing education to help my clients. And no one was picking up on that this was the problem. Actually, that’s not true. The final therapist that I saw in my relationship, she picked it out in about three sessions because I kept thinking that I was the problem. And to an extent, I was, because I was so tolerant, because I was so forgiving, because I was so hardworking, I was being taken advantage of. I was being abused by a coercive controller, or we can narcissists are like, it’s like a you know, a big thing on social or people with personality disorders. But when you really boil it down, and this is what every single person in a heterosexual relationship needs to understand, is coercive control. Okay, and that is not what I didn’t even know about this until after, until after the separation, until you’re seeing things that had been done with finances that you didn’t know because you trusted um like these like accusations against me taking me to court. So I’ve been in court for three years, and these people that are motivated by power and control, because that’s really what that is, is somebody wants to seek power and control over another person. And then I sort of had to have that dark time or that breakdown of my life, my relationship, going to court, kind of losing everything because being in a course of controlling relationship is isolating. You know, he didn’t want me to work as much. He wanted me home. It’s control, right? Um I I kind of had to learn after the fact, looking in the rearview mirror of how all how who I was, my joy, my autonomy, things had been taken from me slowly over time. And I thought that I was the problem, but I was not the problem. The relationship system was the problem, and my super traits set me up to be there. But that’s when I stopped and thought, oh my goodness, I have like if this is me, then this is my clients and my patients too. And looking back over the years that I had been working with women and having women, the women do my super trait quiz, have them do an assessment for coercive control, and how many of them were coming back that that both were true. And it’s just so fascinating how we blame ourselves when really it’s the system that our relationship is existing in. And then when you are being coercively controlled and you don’t know it, and your therapist doesn’t know it unless they have extensive domestic violence training or coercive control, continuing education, which is usually very rare. So even these trauma-informed therapists, you go to the therapist and then they blame you as the superwoman, or you know, they’re looking at the relationship, assuming that both people are there because they want to fix it, and both people have equal capacity to forgive and be loyal and all of that. But it that’s never the case. We have somebody that’s the over giver, over functioner, and somebody that’s the the taker. So through that whole Whole mess and whole unraveling of kind of getting everything that I said I wanted in life and then losing it and starting over, but starting over for me and no one else, like because that’s when I said I’m gonna be single for at least one year, and it’s it’s been three now, and it’s been like it’s been the best time of my life.
I’m glad I’m glad you took that time because so many people that I know that have been in these types of relationships don’t take that time, they jump from one relationship to the other because they don’t heal the wound that is informing these choices that are attracting these people into your life because you’ve got to do the work. Now, the what happened to you as a child, the modeling you received, the circumstances you live through that created some of these super traits, they weren’t your fault, but they’re now your responsibility to heal, like to understand how they play a role, and so that you can start to really get to know yourself, truly get to know yourself so that you can attract if you want to step into a new relationship, attract the person that you’re meant to attract and not that your wounds are attracting.
Yeah, and I want to be, I agree, like yes, and I did need to heal, I did need to learn about myself, about these traits of like that. Was my natural way of being in relationship, which was I gave everything. Yes, but we do that longer against myself, and I thought it made me a good wife, and but really I was erasing myself from the relationship and being taken advantage of now when and I I’m really careful on this now, and I want to make this so clear that we predatory personalities, like I I don’t like it’s we border on victim blaming sometimes when we say, like, oh, you attracted, right? This person is faking who they are. Okay, that’s different until you are trapped, right? By a child, by a marriage, through a business deal, and then they’re showing who they are.
Are these the nice guy narcissists? Because I’ve seen videos on these guys.
Yes, yeah, okay. They can well, and and yeah, this is this is where social takes it to another level of now. We have like we’ve got the good guy gaslighter and the nice guy narcissist and everything. But yeah, they look one way, they present one way in the beginning. And then we’re asking women, well, why didn’t you see these red flags or whatever? Or you chose wrong, you have a bad picker, which puts the whole focus and the blame on the victim in the situation who was intentionally deceived, intentionally misled about, and and sometimes it’s like flat out lies and double lives, and and we don’t want to raise our hand, right? Because we’re successful, things look good from the outside. No one is looking to see that, oh, she is being abused, she is being controlled, but because we’re taught the violent incident model, right? About sexual assault and bruises and things like that, and that’s what we think abuse is. But the underpinning of all abuse is coercive control, and that’s when somebody is going through a set of behaviors to have power and control over you. And I’ll give you a quick example. So I have a client, she came to me for hormone issues and she had no libido, zero. Okay, she’s a surgeon, and then she’s worked with me for a while, so I didn’t see things the way that I would be able to so clearly see them now. At the beginning, you know, we focused on her hormones and there was some shame and sexual trauma and you know, working through all of that stuff. But then what she didn’t say and what she didn’t let on until maybe after a year of us working together is my husband stopped working, he drinks all day. So I’ve been supporting him for you know X number of years. And so not only is she the primary breadwinner, she takes care of the kids, um, like takes them to all their appointments, she cuts the grass, she does the laundry, right? So that on the outside, and if you go to a therapist, right, they’re assuming that two people are of equal capacity, but they’re not. One is overgiving and one is there to take, and he’s controlling from the under functioning perspective, and it’s not there, it’s not easily spotted unless you have the right training. So, you know.
So,
what can a woman do? Like in this, using your example, she is in the situation, the circumstance right now. Someone listening on the other side of this. What is the first step to start moving in the direction of really stop being that overgiver and start being, you know, true to yourself, true to the person that that you’re meant to be, so that you can navigate out of this pivotal moment. Like use this as a pivotal moment to pivot out of there. What do they do?
So this is in my work, this is the pleasure path. And the first step is we are focusing on pleasure for us, okay? And we are so far gone. We are our pleasure centers are off, we are so burnt out. We could be, and if you have super traits and what I’m saying sounds a lot like you, you are probably in a coercive controlling situation. And I would say that over half of heterosexual marriages are just because of how it is. And I teach women how to create pleasure-centered relationships. But the first step is we focus on pleasure for us and we start turning those pleasure centers on a little bit, where we start to learn how do I make myself feel good? Not in relation to is everyone else happy, none of that. Because we have to learn how to center ourselves because we’ve centered the other person for so long. And I do have a list of 50 pleasure practices, a guide, if your listeners want to, just for fun, you know, like just to see. Oh, even if you’re not in this situation, it’s just good because we give so much, right? We’re so focused on outward on other people’s happiness and joy. Like, what can I do for more?
And there’s a balance to the giving. You know, I this is something that um I felt trapped to where I was trying to be the Proverbs 31 woman of the Bible that does absolutely everything and keeps everything going. And I was exhausted. And I finally got to a point that when I was reading the word of God that said, God does not like extremes, there’s a balance to everything, you know. Yes, giving is a gift, you give yourself, but there’s a limit to that. I mean, there’s there’s giving and then there’s overgiving. Anything over is not good for us, it’s not healthy for any of us, including the men. There’s men, and sometimes in these situations, not just women that suffer from this, yeah. Depends on the relationship you’re in. Yeah. The the takers could be the wives. And so it’s it’s an interesting. I’ve seen this a lot, by the way. I’ve seen what you’re talking about in real life in my own family. I saw it with my mother. Um, culturally speaking, the Mexican moms tend to do this overgiving a lot and they sacrifice their own pleasure. It’s all about the children, it’s all about the husbands, and but inwardly they’re resentful because nobody’s noticing, nobody really cares to look at them.
So lonely.
But one of the things I told my mom is like, mom, you also set that up without realizing because she didn’t do it on purpose, she didn’t do it to set herself up, but subconsciously she did to a degree, you know, that that’s what she saw at home. She saw her mom do this, and I’m sure her mother saw her mother do this, and it just keeps going back generation to generation.
Yeah. And you gotta it’s modeled for us. You gotta, and that we have to change it. Yes. And aside from pleasure practices and making yourself happy, I think we all need to realize if you’re the I call them superwomen, like you’re the overgiver, the doer, you’re you’re doing so much. So you you your relationship is like this lump of coal that you’ve been putting effort into, squeezing it, trying to turn it into a diamond, or get it back to just how it used to be. Like, but you are the only one putting in the effort. You’re the only one planning the dates, you’re the one doing the repair. Like we have to let go for a moment. And and that’s the most painful part, and that’s the trickiest part. And that part of the pleasure path, I have to help like almost hand hold my clients through. Well, because it’s so tough. It’s tough to let go and realize, like, oh shit, I have a lump of coal. I don’t have a diamond, I have a lump of coal, and and I’m efforting, I’m putting the effort in.
Yeah, you’re the one pursuing. What was it? It was a conversation I was having with somebody at the church yesterday. They was like, Well, how’s it going? And I was like, Well, I’m the only one pursuing. I’m the only one. Now, there is a lot of dynamic, there’s a lot of history there. And I I’m in a different season of my life, faith, very faith-based um part of my life, that I’m starting to understand covenant versus contract marriage, which is contract marriage is what the world looks at it. It’s the psychology of it. And where God is encouraging me to step into his covenant, unconditional love, but also with myself. You know, yes. How do I because look at what he’s asking us to do? Love me first, which is understandable, right? He created us, he knows us well, he’s given us this talent, this amazing capacity that we’re not really tapping into until we let go and let him take over. Now, it’s love me first and then love others as you love yourself. That piece, most people skip over. They just see love God and love others. No, no, no. Love others as you love yourself. So the self-love piece must be it, it’s in the equation or it’s not gonna work. Simple, you know, and so I’m sure the 50, the, the, the 50 thing, can you just share a couple of them just for fun? Like what’s on that 50 list?
Um it’s clean out your underwear drawer, throw out the ones that are old and gross and make you feel bad and fold them up real nice for your purse. Right? How many, you know, we get we end up with stuff where we filling up our purse, and then but once in once you do it, it takes what 10 minutes. But then once you do it, but then every time you open your purse, it’s just like, oh, this feels amazing, right? Like these things don’t have to cost money, they don’t have to take a lot of time. Things like when you’re in the shower shampooing your hair, actually like be present, smell the shampoo, like feel the lather, feel your fingers on your scalp, like because we’re in our head so much. A lot of the activities are helping bring us into our bodies.
Um, pause for presence was my tagline for the year. I bet you would love that. I do love that pause for presence. That’s something that God said, okay, baby girl, we need to have a chat. You know, and I sat me down in November, and he said, Listen, child, you are achieving my love. Why are you doing that? You have my love, you don’t need to achieve anything. I I’m right here. And all I want is your heart. That’s what I want. And I need you to pause for presents.
And that’s these high achievers or women with super traits. We feel like our worth is tied to how much we give and how much we earn and how much we succeed. And that’s why, in that this part where everything that I built and grew and worked so hard for for basically two decades, was sort of systematically taken away from me, right? And it was choices that I made. I chose to love and I chose to trust, and I chose to love somebody else more than I love myself. And then so it got me to this place where I’m in a like I lost everything. I’d closed a business, I’d lost my relationship, I was in court for the first time in my life. Navigating family court is a whole beast of its own. Um they’ve done that with the first navig navigating family court with an abuser is ooh, and it’s I’ve heard it’s even worse in some states than it is here in Canada. So um, and if you had a child involved as well, my goodness, it’s it’s horrific.
It is tough because they do. I remember my first um, the father of my son, he when we’re going through the divorce, he betrayed me financially. I found out after the divorce, and it’s like, you’ll get used to it, you’ll get over it. And I’m like, okay, left it in God’s hands because I thought I can’t control this right now. And it was gonna drive me crazy. So I just left it in God’s hands. Um, the second the second thing that happened once I um when we were going through the divorce, he was so intent on taking money away from me. In those years, I worked for Pfizer Pharmaceuticals. I was a the top saleswoman in the country for sales. I was making a very good living, getting very high bonuses, the whole nine yards, right? And he always there was a suspicion of people out in the community where I lived and worked and everything that suspected that he married me because of the status that came with marrying someone like me. I came from a medical family. I had um the, you know, a very uh successful career. I was a very hard worker and I was someone that he was working for employee, he was an employee when I married him. And I said, you know, I earn a good living. Why are you an employee? You can you can open up your own business, you could be, you know, and you funded it, and I funded it.
Yes. Yeah, my clients do that all the time. Oh yeah.
Funded it. And then when he was done getting everything from me, that’s when he asked for a divorce. The timing of it was interesting. Um, I always suspected some narcissism in him. And interestingly enough, uh, when I in the divorce proceedings, all I ever wanted was time with my son. That’s what was the most important to me. Uh, money comes and goes.
I’ve I’ve always been that and that’s what they’re gonna come after, though. Your son. Because they know that that’s how they can hurt you the most.
He didn’t. He was so focused on the money aspect. Okay, interesting. And I I remember telling my attorney, I said, money comes and goes. Like it’s gonna be a fair split because in Texas it’s a it’s a 50-50.
It’s a 50-50, no fault.
No fault, right? And there’s no alimony in Texas unless you apply for it. You know, it’s not like I think California is like automatically alimony, but in in Texas, not necessarily. And he was hiding money. I knew that for a fact. He was hiding money from me, and I just left it honestly all up to the Lord. And here’s why I’m saying this very clearly. I basically told the attorney, make sure there’s no geographic restriction on that, on that.
Um your settlement.
My settlement. And on the divorce decree. Make sure it’s on that legal document. And so it was on there, and he agreed to it. He signed off on it. I don’t think he ever realized that I was going to re like to find someone else and move away. I think in his mind he was like, oh, she’ll need me, she’ll come back to me. That kind of attitude, right? Right. And three years later, I met who had become my second husband, uh, Donnie, and he lived in Austin. I lived in Brownsville, Texas, which is the border uh with Mexico, so right on the border. And I um I said, Well, I don’t have a geographic restriction. So when he asked me to marry him, I said yes, and I was gonna move to Austin because that’s where his business was. He was a business owner, electrical engineer, had his own business. So it made more sense. I was with Pfizer at the time. I could move anywhere. I was a pharmaceutical rep, right? A hospital rep. And so it made more sense for us, my son and I to move to Austin, Texas. So we do. He sues me. He doesn’t just sue me right away, he waits till we are leaving for our honeymoon. The timing of it was really comical.
That’s when that’s when you know you have a narcissist or somebody with a personality disorder. My ex left on Mother’s Day.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But I laughed. You know, I I had a very good attorney that I had hired. Well, I moved to Austin and I kind of saw the writing on the wall, and I hired her, and she was known as a pit bull in South Texas. So she got on the, she goes, You don’t have to worry about anything. You just go on your honeymoon, you you we’re gonna we’re gonna make sure this gets taken care of. So the gist of it is this is like he um he sues me. I come back, I I’m refreshed. Um, it gets pushed back several months. I get told by my attorney, you’ve been assigned in a courthouse with a a judge that hates women
I know. I’ve had brutal luck with judges too.
And so I was like, okay. And I remember just thinking, okay, I’m just gonna leave it to the Lord. I I can’t control this. I can’t. I am going to trust that the Lord is gonna guide me in this chapter, and I’m just I’m gonna do my my role, which is to be the best version of me, do what I can, you know, be the best wife, be, but not go, you know, just kind of go to court, back to court. And I had to go back to South Texas to fly down. I was already working here in Austin, I had moved, and I unbeknownst to me was already pregnant with my daughter. And I had luckily listened to one of the court cases of the judge before they pushed the the thing back. And I asked my attorney, I said, May I speak to the judge directly? You know, and so here we are in court, he’s with his lawyer, and they all belong to the same groups in town, you know, it’s a very close-knit community. My father, uh God rest his soul, he passed away almost two years ago on Father’s Day. Big time urologist in town, so everybody knew him. I was very well known down there, and um and I go down there very humbly, like look at the judge, and I said, you know, I was in your courthouse a couple months back, and I heard this court case where you very um very rightly so reminded a father that by you know moving away, you know, the child is not a ping pong ball. You know, we got to be very careful how we manage our children. And so I’m here to to say that I knew that I had been assigned to the right court courtroom when I heard you say that to that father. And I’m in total agreement with you. I moved to Austin, sir, not because. I wanted to take his child away from him, like my ex-husband is claiming. I said, I’m I’m someone that um moved because my husband’s business was there and I’m a pharmaceutical rep and I can move anywhere. It’s not about the money for me. It’s it was about the stability for our son. And while I don’t have a problem putting him on a plane to come down to South Texas once a month, I don’t think it’s fair to the child that he be put on a plane twice a month because he doesn’t want to drive or fly up to see his one and only son because it affects the boy. It doesn’t affect me in any way, sir. It affects him directly. And that’s who I’m here to represent today.
You could have been a law family law lawyer.
And he was just like, he was leaning in. Mike’s husband lost his temper when I was like discussing this because his lawyer saying, She doesn’t need his money, she’s the daughter of a doctor. That’s what he says in court. And the judge, oh dear lord, I’ve never seen someone get so upset in that courtroom as he did. He leaned back and was glaring at my husband because he saw right through his tactics. He was wanting to get everything for himself. He had he did not care about coming to see his boy. He cared about the money and the time it was going to cost him. And it was all about him. And it was very clear to him. And so, interestingly enough, this is how it played out. And this is on my book, and En Faith I threw finding joy through God’s Master Plan. He um, because he had opened up the case, you know, he sued me. My lawyer used a tactic that’s very common. When you open up cases like this, you open up the case on your end too. And so they investigated how much money he was actually making. And he had lied to the um to the state um the attorney general’s office about how much money he was making. And that’s how they they they you know, they want to cut the corners and they want to do all that. And I said, listen, this isn’t this money isn’t for me, it’s for our son. It’s uh for his you know, well-being, and and you’re his father, and so you have a responsibility here. And um, so they upped his child support payments. Amazing. And the judge said, and sir, you are ordered to go see your son on the first and third. Like, so in other words, you’re gonna he ordered him to come and see him once a month, and and and our son was gonna be flown down to the valley just once. That’s a good outcome. And he looked at him and he said, you know, he he said, You were trying to use my courthouse to hurt her and to hurt your son. And it’s all about you, and it’s very evident to me what you were trying to do in my courthouse, sir. And I’m here to tell you you lost the case today. Look right at him. And I just sat there and I was like, oh my gosh. But this is what happens when you release the control to God, to a higher power that can that nothing’s impossible for him. And he knows everyone in this scenario, every single person in this room is under him. And he knows all the motivations, he ride through everything, and he can move things and move people’s hearts. I mean, this judge had a hardened heart towards women, and for whatever reason, God softened his heart to listen to my case so he wouldn’t judge me based on appearances. Because I walked in there thinking he’s gonna, I’m gonna, our son’s gonna lose. It’s not gonna be me losing, it’s gonna be our son ultimately losing.
And that’s that is ultimately what happens, and it’s very clear that one parent’s motivation is about their rights and control or harming the other parent.
And it’s sad because their children are losing. And they have nothing to do with this scenario. And I think that the you know, the work and and the books you’ve published, I think are are great assets in your lists to really help women understand these super traits, you know, which I’m sure I’m part of that group, um, because of how I landed. And it a lot of it was my wounds with my father. And I’m glad that God guided me to write my first manuscript because it was meant to heal all those wounds. You know, I sat with God and I wrote and I forgave my dad. And from that point on, my I freed myself from the cage I I myself put myself, but this is me, my journey is very different than yours. But the where I can relate is that there is joy to be had, there is uh awareness on our part, you know, and I’m grateful I did the work that I needed to do for me, um, so that I could step into these other chapters that are just so joy-filled. Because now I I look, I love my life, but and I know that that pivotal moment, that divorce, that court case, all of that played a role, the lessons I learned that equip me for today. So, in
all honesty, what was the greatest lesson for you, Dr. Jordan?
I too there’s two. One, I am not a slave to what other people think anymore or how things look. I have, you know, myself and my moral ethics and to answer to, but I’m not I’m not performing for other people anymore. And the the amount of space that that frees up, that people can be wrong about me or misunderstand my situation. And like the amount of mental space that I have is freedom that I don’t worry about what other people think anymore, and to the degree that I used to for sure, probably sneaks up a bit. Um and the other is that I really learned who I am, and I don’t really I and the super traits develop from trauma and childhood trauma, and I’m have my healing and that, but I didn’t I didn’t want to become a person that hardens or you know, feels like people are out to like I want to be that overgiving, loving person, but the work for myself and for my clients on the pleasure path is how do I discern who to share it with? Yeah. Like all of who I am and how much I have to give. How do, and this is like in business, in friendships, in romantic relationships, um, because I don’t, I think they’re great qualities. They make me who I am, but I don’t want to be giving them to people and situations and jobs that are going to extract from me and take from me. So um learning who I am and and kind of being more of who I authentically am with an apology.
So I’m ready to like whatever’s next, and what do you think is next for you? I mean, you’ve written you’ve written the Pin Canary, and then you also wrote a second book, or you’re in the process.
I’m writing. I’m kind of writing two at once, which is a little bit more I’m writing my personal story. Yeah, I know, and my other, but I I’m at this point where I’m it’s been three years in court, and I’m gonna walk away. I’m gonna take nothing. I’m gonna say, keep your money, keep everything, right? Like it’s it, it’s not what it’s taking from me to continue this. And as you said with your ex, the money is very important, the hiding of the money, the you know.
Here’s the here’s the thing, you remind me of Tina Turner. Like when you when you watch the movie, she walks away and all she asks for is her name. She’s like, keep everything because she knows that God’s gonna provide. You know, I mean, she was a Buddhist, right? So the universe is gonna provide. In in my case, God will provide when you believe that, when you truly, truly believe that, and you walk away and you let go.
So that Sylvia, that’s where I am at, as I’m gonna walk away. But and even when we talk about the financial abuse and the manipulation, like I’m on properties, like it’s a mess. So this walking away means like I’m I’m probably gonna file for bankruptcy. Like that’s how significant this walk away will be. Because if I say like you keep everything, I and this this statistically happens to women, like they are on the hook for more of the marital debt or less of the marital assets, they have to file for bankruptcy. Anyways, like the fact that this is the writing on the wall when you try and oh I know, but I’m I’m like, you know what? I was successful, I owned a home, I own it, like I I was fine before. Yeah, I will be fine again. So I’m gonna let go of the rope, say you keep it.
And here’s the thing like when your soul is pulling you in a different direction, and then the ego is pulling you in the opposite, you gotta you gotta understand the ego doesn’t inform well because the ego is where the doubt is, right? The soul is where the light and the essence is.
And it’s that’s where I was that’s where you’re at. I was probably stuck for the last six months of like the person that would go bankrupt. Like, look at what I had, look at what I built, like, you know.
Girl, I just had a conversation with a friend of mine that was like wanting to step into a new relationship, but was caught up in what the family, like, what she was taught in in her own birth family of money. Well, he doesn’t have money, and I’m just gonna have to let that go. And I go, when has that made you happy? And she looked, she like sat back and she’s like, never really. I mean, you I go, you had it with the you know, with your previous relationship, and how and it made you the most miserable. He ended up cheating on her with multiple women and her catching him after 20 years of marriage. That’s it’s it’s tough. It’s uh it’s devastating. And but I looked at her and I said, You’re you are a woman of worth, and it’s not about the money you make. That’s not what determines your worth. I want you to understand that. And for those women listening on the other side of this interview, let me let me make this very clear. Your worth isn’t not in how much you make money, that is not your worth, or how much you give, or how much you give. The perfect woman, the superwoman. I mean, there was a video that was circulating in Facebook many years ago about older women talking to younger women about not being that superwoman, about let that go. That is that is not what you want to be. That’s not who you want to embody, you know, because it’s this unattainable perfection that does not exist. It’s an illusion of the mind, it’s something that we grow up with. We see it, we need to break that because that is not what life is about. Life is about so much more than the amount of money you make. You will make money again. You have the skill sets, you have the capacity, you have the self-discipline, you have the power. God has already told you that.
Yeah, and it’s so it’s it’s interesting because I and this is like I’m deciding what to do. And the superwoman in me is like that’s your ego though. I’m gonna work right now, I’m gonna work off this debt. I’m not somebody that goes bankrupt, blah, blah, blah. Even though when you look at the women in my situation that have gone through what I’ve gone through, like from the financial abuse, it is bankruptcy every time at the end of this road. Like, or you try to stand up and fight a wealthy abuser in court, it’s bankruptcy. Like, there’s research done on it. This is the end of the road. So now I’m just like asking. Yeah, I’ve been what I’ve been asking for is I want time to write my next book.
Yeah.
Right. Without the noise. I just want to sit and I want to write because it will be healing for me. It’s gonna be healing for the so many women that read it. Like it’s gonna, I know it will be. My first book was amazing, helped so many women. This is like gonna be a different level.
And we we don’t know what’s on the other side of this journey. We don’t. However, you’ve already survived so much, Dr. Jordan. You have, you have the capacity, trust in that. Trust that you’ve learned the lessons that God has equipped you with that for such as a time as this. And if you don’t know Esther in the Bible, I read her book. If if it’s one book you read in the Old Testament, that one is for all women out there. Such as a time as this, you have been equipped by the maker of the universe for such as a time as this.
And if your soul is feeling a pull to let go, let go. Let go.
You may find that what is waiting for you on the other side is greater than your biggest dreams. And he wants to give it to you, but until you trust him, it’s not gonna happen. Because you’re what you want is so small.
Yeah, I’m still gripping.
You’re gripping, you gotta, you gotta release it. Release that doubt so that your purpose of being an author, whatever book comes out of you, will be revealed to you.
Time to let go. Time to let go.
You really think that this this timing on this interview, you don’t think this is a good idea.
I know, and yeah, it was definitely divine timing for us to talk today.
Because I feel the Holy Spirit, and so these words were meant for you. This is not coming from me, this is coming from him. He loves you, he he wants you to know that he’s heard your prayers, that he is with you. You are not alone, and you’re secure with him. Our attachment with the Lord is secure, despite how we grew up, despite what happened to us in our circumstances, the men we married, despite it all, we have a heavenly father that loves us, and we are his daughter first and foremost. That is our identity. We are royalty, and we need to start acting like that. We need to start stepping into our light fully with confidence, no doubt. I mean, the doubt there is. I see you, Dr. Jordan, and you I see light around you. There’s an aura of light despite what you’re going through right now.
Yeah, I feel like it might be dimmer than it usually is, but thank you.
You’re actually radiant in my eyes. You’re radiant, you are shining his light because you’re you’re trusting him. I know you’re gonna you’re gonna make the decision that is going to speak to your soul and speak to to your your essence of who you are, that light that you’re still so bright in this world. Please know that that you are he’s so proud of you. He really is. He’s very, very proud of you.
Thank you.
Any last words of encouragement you want to leave us
with? And and how do we purchase the pink canary and or support you or work with you?
Um, the pink canary, you can it’s on Amazon, um, and I think any book retailer, but definitely you can find it on Amazon. And my podcast, the Pleasure Principles Podcast, is a great way to hear more. And the Pleasure Path Substack that I just started. I’ll be doing trainings and it that’s more of your action steps. If you want to get started, you can find me on Substack.
Amazing, amazing. And I just want to thank you for your vulnerability, for all those pivotal moments that you shared, for the courage that you’ve instilled in all of us listening to just step out of that fear and step into a light that is so bright. And I know that um for those listening, you know how always sign off is to remember Matthew 5.14 to be the light, be the light, like Dr. Jordan has been the light. She left an abusive relationship. She had the courage to walk away. That takes boldness, that takes courage and self-discipline, because so many of us are so afraid. We’re so full of doubt. We need to release that doubt, and so that in our journey, in the spiritual awakening that we’re in, we can move through it, move through this mountain that we’re currently facing on the other side of joy, where God is waiting for us patiently, where he’s waiting for to take over, to carry you when you’re tired, when you’re just so exhausted and burned out. You have to do this alone. He’s there, he will carry you, he will give you rest. Please take his yoke. It’s way lighter than the one you’re currently carrying because you’re trying to do this on your own understanding, your own strength. And you don’t need to do that anymore. You are his daughter. You are the daughter of a king and your royalty. You are a coerce with Christ Himself, and He is ready and willing to just live on you and help you through the Star Chapter. I hope you guys have a wonderful and restful rest of your day. Love y’all. Bye now.
So
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