When Michelle Manley’s dog pulled her out of the path of an oncoming van on Mother’s Day 2012, it wasn’t just her body that was saved—it was the beginning of reclaiming her entire life. The van was driven by her ex-husband in a moment of rage, but the real collision had been happening for years: the devastating impact of living according to others’ expectations instead of her own truth.
This moment of acute physical danger became the catalyst for Michelle to finally break free from others’ expectations that had shaped her choices for decades. From a fundamentalist religious group that dictated how she should live, to an abusive marriage where fear kept her trapped, Michelle’s story illuminates the profound cost of abandoning ourselves to please others—and the transformative power of choosing to reclaim your time and energy.
“I was looking for answers,” Michelle reflects on her journey through a high-control religious group and into an abusive marriage. “I had lost a lot of people in my life, and I think when the cult came along with answers like, we know what happens when you die. We have the recipe, you know, that appealed to where I was at at that moment in time.”
Her experience reveals how vulnerability can make us susceptible to external voices that promise certainty but demand our authentic selves in return. Yet it also demonstrates that it’s never too late to transform your relationships with others’ expectations and create a better life on your own terms.
The Hidden Cost of Seeking Approval
Michelle’s journey began in her mid-twenties when grief and loss left her searching for meaning. The death of her father when she was fourteen, followed by her grandfather’s passing, created a wound that she never fully processed. “I never really dealt with my father’s death. He died when I was 14 and I kind of just threw myself into school and work and you know, was doing other things and pretty much anything to not feel.”
This pattern of avoiding difficult emotions while seeking external validation created the perfect storm for falling under others’ control. The fundamentalist religious group offered appealing promises: clear answers about life and death, guaranteed reunion with deceased loved ones, and a structured path forward. But these promises came with a price—complete submission to their expectations.
“You weren’t allowed to date outside of the group. You weren’t certainly couldn’t marry outside the group. You know, there was. It was very insular, insulated,” Michelle explains. The group’s control extended to every aspect of personal choice, from romantic relationships to daily decisions.
Even more insidiously, the messages about women being subservient prepared Michelle for the abusive marriage that followed. As she puts it, “being there when you’re getting the message of women being subservient and all that, that primes you for an abusive marriage. So it was just kind of a lateral step from one abuse.”
This progression reveals how living life on someone else’s terms rarely stops at one relationship or situation. When we abandon our own judgment and internal compass, we become vulnerable to successive forms of control and manipulation.
The Illusion of Safety in Compliance
For twelve years, Michelle remained in an abusive marriage, believing she was protecting her children and maintaining stability. Her ex-husband’s threats were explicit: “He was like, I will keep custody of the kids. You’re never going to see them again.” Fear of losing her three young children kept her trapped in a situation that was slowly destroying her physical and emotional health.
“I had a lot of health issues at the time. I had fibromyalgia, very badly. I had some other health issues. I was battling weight issues. It was physically my body was bearing what I was going through, without a doubt,” Michelle recalls. Her body was keeping score of the emotional toll, even when her mind tried to rationalize staying.
The marriage wasn’t “all hell and gloom,” as Michelle acknowledges, which made the decision to leave even more complex. “There were absolutely good times. It wasn’t abusive all the time, but very erratic behavior and certainly very comfortable destroying things when he was angry and you know, once you’ve been hit and you see somebody destroying things, you know that, you know, you’re in line.”
This intermittent reinforcement—periods of relative calm punctuated by fear and violence—is a hallmark of abusive relationships. It creates a trauma bond that makes leaving feel impossible, even when staying means abandoning your own well-being and authentic self.
Amy Stone’s insightful question cuts to the heart of this dilemma: “If you had not had the van incident, do you think that you would have eventually found your way to making these changes?” Michelle’s answer reveals that she was already on the path to change: “A few days before the van incident, I actually asked for a separation, which may have also been a factor in what transpired.”
The Journey to Reclaim Your Authentic Self
Breaking free from others’ expectations isn’t a single moment—it’s a process that requires both courage and sustained effort. For Michelle, the physical separation from her abusive marriage was just the beginning. The deeper work of healing and reclaiming her identity took years.
“It was probably about seven or eight years of really… And I was also raising three kids who were equally traumatized, so my time wasn’t always able to be spent on my healing journey,” Michelle explains. She engaged with mental health professionals, worked through her CPTSD diagnosis, and gradually began to understand the extent of the spiritual abuse she had experienced.
Interestingly, Michelle didn’t initially recognize her religious experience as abusive. “I hadn’t even realized it was spiritual abuse. Like, to me it was just like, oh, it’s just a really strict church.” It wasn’t until she connected with others in the deconstruction community that she could see her experience clearly: “oh, that was abusive. Like, this was not good.”
This recognition phase is crucial for anyone seeking to break free from others’ expectations. Often, we normalize controlling behavior or convince ourselves that external demands are reasonable. Michelle’s experience shows that developing the ability to distinguish between legitimate guidance and manipulative control is essential for long-term freedom.
Creating a Life That Reflects Your True Values
Today, Michelle works as a Reiki master and energy healer, helping others navigate their own journeys of self-discovery and healing. Her focus on “women over 40 who are sort of waking up and realizing they’ve been on autopilot for a while” reflects her understanding that breaking free from others’ expectations often happens in midlife, when the gap between who we are and who we’ve been trying to be becomes undeniable.
“I’m a whole different person now in so many ways. I’ve done so much healing work and I’ve reclaimed so many bits of myself that I hadn’t given voice to for years, decades,” Michelle reflects. This reclamation process involved both releasing old patterns and rediscovering aspects of herself that had been suppressed.
Perhaps most remarkably, Michelle has found meaning in her difficult experiences. “I can see now how each piece, you know, brought forth a different piece of me which I can now use to help other people.” This doesn’t mean the trauma was necessary or beneficial—rather, it demonstrates how we can create meaning from our suffering by using our experience to help others.
Her work now focuses on helping women discover “there’s more to life, but it’s not religion. So what is it? You know, how do I find myself again?” This question gets to the heart of breaking free from others’ expectations: it’s not just about leaving controlling situations, but about discovering who you are when you’re no longer performing for others’ approval.
The Ongoing Practice of Living Authentically
Michelle’s story reveals that breaking free from others’ expectations isn’t a destination—it’s an ongoing practice of choosing authenticity over approval, even when it’s difficult or scary. Her self-care practice of spending time in nature—”whenever I feel frazzled or like I’m unraveling, I go and I will sit with the trees”—represents this commitment to honoring her own needs and finding her center.
The transformation from victim to healer, from controlled to empowered, from living someone else’s life to embodying her own—this journey required Michelle to repeatedly choose herself over others’ comfort. It meant leaving the certainty of religious dogma for the uncertainty of spiritual exploration. It meant choosing the unknown challenges of single parenthood over the familiar dysfunction of an abusive marriage.
Most importantly, it meant learning to trust her own judgment after years of deferring to others. As Michelle notes about her time in the religious group: “The entire time I was in the church, they kept telling me how rebellious I was. I never fit in there because I questioned everything.” What they labeled as rebellion was actually her authentic self refusing to be completely silenced.
Breaking free from others’ expectations requires us to reclaim this inner rebel—the part of us that knows when something isn’t right, even when everyone around us insists it is. It means learning to hear our own voice above the chorus of external demands and opinions.
Michelle’s journey from a woman who nearly lost her life to someone else’s rage to a healer helping others find their own path demonstrates the profound transformation possible when we finally choose to put ourselves first. Her story reminds us that it’s never too late to break free from others’ expectations and build the life you’ve always wanted—one authentic choice at a time.
This article was inspired by a thought-provoking interview with Michelle Manley and Amy Stone on The Art of Imperfect Adulting podcast. To hear more compelling conversations like this one and receive special offers from our guests directly to your inbox, join our email community today.
Interview Transcript Michelle Manley with Amy Stone | The Art of Imperfect Adulting | July 1, 2025
Amy Stone [00:00:05]:
Michelle Manley, welcome to the art of imperfect adulting. Are you ready for a fun chat?
Michelle Manley [00:00:10]:
I am. I’m very excited to be here.
Amy Stone [00:00:13]:
Yay. I’m excited to have this conversation. I start almost every interview asking people, I guess asking you, what part of the world do you call home these days?
Michelle Manley [00:00:23]:
I am in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and I’ve lived in Massachusetts most of my life.
Amy Stone [00:00:28]:
That is spectacular. In a second, we’re going to get to the topic of the day, but first, I want to ask you one more question. Just to get to know you a little bit better. Could you share with me and also with the audience something that you do to take care of yourself, something that you consider self care? So it could be physical, it could be emotional, whatever that means for you.
Michelle Manley [00:00:48]:
Getting out in nature. Absolutely. I need to do that regularly. Whenever I feel frazzled or like I’m unraveling, I go and I will sit with the trees.
Amy Stone [00:00:58]:
So nature in the terms of like a forest.
Michelle Manley [00:01:01]:
Forest or even. Honestly, yesterday I went to a daffodil field. Like, just nature, you know, just somewhere where I can go and there’s, you know, greenery.
Amy Stone [00:01:11]:
Very nice. All right. I love that answer. Or the ocean. Yeah, or the ocean. That’s. I’m. I’m in a place where the nature is mostly ocean, so. Absolutely. So now we’re going to get to the topic of the day. Once upon a time, Michelle, somebody tried to run you over with a van on Mother’s Day, which is really, I mean, I gotta say, not a nice thing for somebody to do. Would you like to talk about that today and the decisions you made as a result of that?
Michelle Manley [00:01:38]:
Absolutely, yes. I was in an abusive marriage, and my ex, he was attempting to get better and went and got some medication and was getting anger management classes, but got misdiagnosed and put on medication. That kind of triggered a psychotic episode. And on Mother’s Day 2012, I was with my mother and he just had a meltdown and he wanted me home, he wanted the kids home. But, you know, I’m like, no, I’ll come back when I’m done with my mother. And by the time I got back, he was in the van. And when he saw me, he just gunned it for me. What was amazing is that my dog pulled me out of the way for some. So for years, we called him Yuki the Wonder Dog.
Amy Stone [00:02:23]:
Wow.
Michelle Manley [00:02:23]:
Yeah.
Amy Stone [00:02:25]:
Wow. That is really. That is really impressive. So that you. You. You shared with me that this was the story, but I didn’t have any details to know. What it was. That sounds scary. And it also, now that I have more details, sounds like it’s a piece of the story that actually has lots more components going on.
Michelle Manley [00:02:41]:
Absolutely, absolutely. You know, I. Many, many things led me to being in an abusive marriage. You know, I had spent time in a fundamentalist cult, and then I came out of that and went into a marriage. I. I was looking for answers. I had lost a lot of people in my life, and I think when the cult came along with answers like, we know what happens when you die. We have. We have the recipe, you know, that appeal that appealed to where I was at at that moment in time. And being there when you’re getting the message of women being subservient and all that, that primes you for an abusive marriage. So it was just kind of a lateral step from one ABUs.
Amy Stone [00:03:21]:
Okay, I get that. All right, so we. Because I want to. I’m a person who believes in saying the thing instead of letting it go unsaid. So I want to ask a couple of questions about the event itself so that we don’t let people make up their own stories about what happened. Like, let’s. We’re just going to do this. So the person who tried to run you over in the van was your. Was somebody you were in a relationship with?
Michelle Manley [00:03:45]:
Yes.
Amy Stone [00:03:45]:
I think you referred to him as your ex. So you guys were married at the time, but you’re not now?
Michelle Manley [00:03:49]:
Yes. Correct.
Amy Stone [00:03:50]:
All right. I’m going to guess that the running over with the van was related to maybe that decision, but it sounds like there was much more, because it sounds like this was not just an act of rage, that he was undergoing treatment for a mental health condition that wasn’t working the way it was supposed to.
Michelle Manley [00:04:06]:
Yeah, yeah. And that tripped me up for a while during our divorce because I was like, you know, do I try again? Because it was triggered by, you know, some medical confusion, and I had to eventually come to the conclusion that, you know, the actions alone and, you know, he continued to be threatening and abusive, you know, that. That. That wasn’t going to change.
Amy Stone [00:04:32]:
So was there a. So let’s. Before we dive deep, I want to get some more information, just basic data about the relationship. Like, how long were you guys together and were there kids and things like that in the family? So tell me more about the family as it was at that time.
Michelle Manley [00:04:51]:
Yes. We were married for 12 years. We had three kids. They were about 8, 6 and 4 at the time. I might have even been a little younger. So, you know, I had Wanted to leave for a while, but he had a really good job. He was making a lot of money. He was like, I will keep custody of the kids. You’re never going to see them again. You know, So I stayed out of. Ostensibly to protect the children. You know, that was.
Amy Stone [00:05:19]:
Well, when you have three kids with somebody, you’re very entangled with them and raising children. Those are young kids. That is something that is hard. It is helpful to have other people around helping to say it. It’s hard. It’s a big step to leave. So I just want to. I don’t want to push it either way. I think it’s very easy to ask people why they didn’t make a decision to leave beforehand. But on the other hand, I also want to honor and give weight to the fact that that’s a really hard thing to do, actually, and it opens up a lot of unknowns. All right, so you guys were together for 12 years. That’s a full marriage. That’s an absolute full marriage. Does sound like there. There were things that were going on that you were not totally thrilled with the marriage beforehand. Looking back now, how long ago did this happen that you. That you separated?
Michelle Manley [00:06:16]:
It was 2012.
Amy Stone [00:06:17]:
Oh, so it’s been a very long time. Okay.
Michelle Manley [00:06:19]:
It’s been a good, long time.
Amy Stone [00:06:20]:
All right, so this is a good time frame to ask this question. When you look back now with over a decade of distance on this, because probably at the time, it was a lot of emotion and hard to see the forest for the trees. When you look back now, do you think that the relationship and the mental health issues were always there, or did it develop while during the relationship? Does that make sense?
Michelle Manley [00:06:45]:
I believe they were always there. I believe that the issues he had predates our knowing each other, but he hid a lot of the abusive aspects until after we were married. In that. That was an eye opener, right? Yeah.
Amy Stone [00:07:04]:
Yeah. No. Well, this is not to dress anything up or make anything seem nice or anything that. But when we’re courting people, we show our best selves. Right. It’s part of the. You know, you don’t walk up to somebody you want to have a relationship with and be like, hey, here are the worst parts about me.
Michelle Manley [00:07:23]:
Exactly.
Amy Stone [00:07:24]:
So it’s a. It’s a tricky thing. We don’t often see people’s dark side until we’re. So we’re in the middle of a relationship, so. All right, so. Very good. So the next thing you shared with me on the intake form was that you got diagnosed with cptsd. CPTSD after a time in the marriage and the cult. So C, P, D, SD for anybody who’s listening, who doesn’t already know, the C in that stands for complex. Right. When we. Everybody’s heard of post traumatic stress disorder, but C, P, D, S, D stands for complex as opposed to acute. And so I’m going to call that the two C bombs you dropped. C, PTSD and the cult bomb. So I want to get a little more information about both of those things. Is it right to say that this happened after you. After the run over with the truck, the van?
Michelle Manley [00:08:16]:
Yes, the CPTSD diagnosis came about about a year later.
Amy Stone [00:08:21]:
A year later. Okay, so right after the van happened, is that when you were like, this cannot go on, and you began steps to separate from the relationship? Yes. And then let’s talk. So then trauma recovery and is specific. Right. So how did you. How are you going through this and who are you talking to? Because I’m, I’m fascinated about this because like, so trauma aware, trauma, all of those things, those are buzzwords right now. But trauma recovery and specifically cult trauma recovery, those are specialized things. So I’m just curious how you, how you were working through it and where the diagnosis came from and stuff.
Michelle Manley [00:08:56]:
We, I had a private psychiatrist at the time, and then we also had a family, a family therapist. So we were getting a lot of intensive help. I knew the kids needed help, I knew I needed help. So we had mental health professionals right in there. But the cult stuff, I didn’t really unravel until probably about eight years ago.
Amy Stone [00:09:19]:
Okay.
Michelle Manley [00:09:20]:
And I carried that. And I hadn’t even realized it was spiritual abuse. Like, to me it was just like, oh, it’s just a really strict church. And that’s how it was. And you know, and it wasn’t until I found people in the deconstruction community and started talking to people that have deconstructed their relationships with religions that really, it illuminated like, oh, that was abusive. Like, this was not good. Yeah, it was. It really had flown under my own radar for quite a while.
Amy Stone [00:09:47]:
That is really interesting. Okay, so really this was. You were dealing head on with the stress of detangling your relationship. And you got a lot of help, which is. Speaks highly of you as a person and wanting to take care of yourself and so on and so forth. And those folks are like, hey, this is what we would consider trauma. Living in an abusive relationship for a long time, we call that. And, and to help that. But you didn’t even talk to them about the Fact that you had grown up in a fundamentalist religion. So that was all related to being in a 12 year marriage with someone who was consistently behaving erratically and abusively. So. Wow. All right, so the decision you made was to leave the marriage after the violence got to a point where you could no longer stay. And so. And then you were in that recovery and you separated. What. And then many years go by and you piece together that you also had stories you were carrying forward from your. So when were you. Tell us more about the cult. Like, is this something you were raised in? We should probably. Instead of calling it a cult, we should probably refer to it as a fundamentalist religion. Just. But tell us more about it and we’ll talk about that.
Michelle Manley [00:11:00]:
Yes. I was in my mid-20s when I joined.
Amy Stone [00:11:04]:
Okay.
Michelle Manley [00:11:04]:
Again, it was, you know, people that really had the answers. They were like, life is. You just, you know, do these things and God will protect you and everything will be fine and, you know, and you’ll see your family again. And that’s. That appealed so much. And, you know, in their defense, I guess I would say they did have some things right in terms of, you know, really they were very active in the community. They gave back. But then on the other side, they were definitely very controlling. You weren’t allowed to date outside of the group. You weren’t. Certainly couldn’t marry outside the group. You know, there was. It was very insular, insulated.
Amy Stone [00:11:43]:
Is this where you met your husband?
Michelle Manley [00:11:46]:
You know, it sort of. He had left and was thinking about coming back. And we got introduced at a church service, but he wasn’t a member of the church at that point. And that caused, you know, fervor when we got together.
Amy Stone [00:11:59]:
Okay, so you joined this as an adult. You found this community, a religious community, but it’s not something that your family of origin was in. And you mentioned something, you said that they told you that you would see your family again. Are you distant from your family or is your family deceased or what was the trip there?
Michelle Manley [00:12:17]:
I meant the ones that were deceased. You know, the ones that were deceased. Your father, you’ll see your, you know, grandparents, you know, and to me, that was all I wanted out of life, you know.
Amy Stone [00:12:27]:
And why was that. Why was that such a strong draw?
Michelle Manley [00:12:31]:
That’s a good question. I think I. Both my father and my grandfather’s death. Deaths were rather traumatic. And I think that that wounding was there. I never really dealt with my father’s death. He died when I was 14 and I kind of just threw myself into School and work and you know, was doing other things and pretty much anything to not feel. So I think, you know, when somebody came to me with, with a, you know, prescription, basically a multi step plan to get what my heart desired so deeply, it was an easy sell at that point.
Amy Stone [00:13:10]:
Yeah, you packaged that up very nicely. But I bet you that was pretty painful to acknowledge because you, from someone who’s listening to the story from the first time, you’re taking accountability and responsibility for the decision to enter the cult based on what you were looking for. I think that’s a very grown up answer and it sounds like you’ve really done a lot of work on it for somebody who’s listening on the outside. But yeah, if you were to go back at the time it probably. It’s hard to understand why people join groups that they are, that are high control groups for people who maybe have never done it. But I think that if I can say it, it was very appealing to you. They offered you something that was very appealing. So you join the faith group, the high control faith group, which at the time probably feels very natural. Through that extended connection you meet this person who you fall in love with and you marry and you make three people. So you’ve got like a growing family at that point when like say like right after you, like when you’re in the middle of it, how did, how did life feel? Like, so you’ve got three kids, you’re checking off the boxes, doing the things that people tell you to do, you’ve got a community, you’ve got a family. How did life feel at that point? Did it feel like things were going well?
Michelle Manley [00:14:27]:
Were there happy times during the marriage?
Amy Stone [00:14:30]:
Yep, during the marriage.
Michelle Manley [00:14:32]:
You know, it wasn’t all hell and gloom. I’ll say that. There were absolutely good times. It wasn’t abusive all the time, but very erratic behavior and certainly very comfortable destroying things when he was out angry and you know, once you’ve been hit and you see somebody destroying things, you know that, you know, you’re in line. So there was a lot of fear. I had a lot of health issues at the time. I had fibromyalgia, very badly. I had some other health issues. I was battling weight issues. It was physically my body was bearing what I was going through, without a doubt. I look back on those times and other than my family, I think of those times as very lonely. I think I was very alone. And when I look back, it’s a sense of yearning for connection that I think I would have probably left earlier had I had good connections in the community and in my life in general, other than just my parents, who were wonderful. But, you know, it’s one of the.
Amy Stone [00:15:37]:
Things that’s really challenging about creating a family in modern times is that you are surrounded by the people in your family. Right. You’ve got your partner and you’ve got your kids. But an enormous number of people who are raising small children do talk about how isolating the experience is. So you’re, like, never alone, but you may not actually have the support of a community outside your house. I find it very confusing. It’s one of the things that I share with people very much about the transition between being someone who, at the time, I was a stepparent, and then when I switched to being the primary caregiver, when I added kids to the family, I became a parent. Parent. Just shocking how, like, alone you can be. There’s no one around at three in the morning when you’re walking the baby in your living room. It’s just you. So. Yeah, no, I think that’s a very. I think that’s very good. Okay. So not everything was horrible. Yeah, that’s. I mean, you know, that’s. You can be in some really, really tough situations, and you can find this the silver lining. But the. And. But things were unstable. You were aware of the volatility, emotionally and physically, that you were living through, but it hadn’t hit a point where you were ready to cut and run until you really felt like your life was acutely in danger. If you had not had that van incident. This is kind of a terrible question, but I’m asking it anyway. If you had not had the van incident, do you think that you would have eventually found your way to making these changes? Or like. Or is the. Without the van incident, do you think you would still be there in this family muddling through?
Michelle Manley [00:17:19]:
It’s interesting. A few days before the van incident, I actually asked for a separation, which may have also been a factor in what transpired. So I was. I was fixing to.
Amy Stone [00:17:32]:
You were on your way out?
Michelle Manley [00:17:34]:
Yeah.
Amy Stone [00:17:34]:
You were on your way out. All right, so very good. So then what are the things that have changed in your life? And it’s been 10 years. What are the things. And divorces are not overnight, so separation is not overnight. But what are the things that have changed in your life as a result of making the decision to end this and walk away from the violence?
Michelle Manley [00:17:54]:
You know, I’m a whole different person now in so many ways. I’ve done so much healing work and I’ve reclaimed so many bits of myself that I hadn’t given voice to for years, decades. I’m a better parent, I think, at this point. And I became a Reiki master. So I learned how to do energetic healing, which has been probably one of the pivotal helpers on my road to healing. And I actually now help other people in. In their healing journeys. And so I get to. To watch my story actually be. Have benefits, have. Have, you know, inherent goodness in it. You know, it’s dramatic. And as remarkable as it is, like, I can see now how each piece, you know, brought. Brought forth a different piece of me which I can now use to help other people.
Amy Stone [00:18:52]:
All right, so very good. So how long. So this started. You separated, and there was a season of working on yourself. And how long would you say that you. How long would you say that you had to work on yourself before you felt like, oh, you know what? I am ready to share my story and begin to help other people?
Michelle Manley [00:19:11]:
It was probably about seven or eight years of really. And I was also raising three kids who were equally traumatized, so my time wasn’t always able to be spent on my healing journey. I also have one child. Well, three children on the spectrum, but one is more.
Amy Stone [00:19:27]:
Okay.
Michelle Manley [00:19:28]:
Needful than. Than the others. So it was. It was a while.
Amy Stone [00:19:33]:
Yeah. No, as. I mean, as it should be. Like, I mean, as long as it takes, right? As long as it takes. So working on yourself, you then make the shift to say, you know, I’m ready to talk about what I went through. I’m ready to help other people. You are a Reiki master, and do you work with people? Who. Who do you. Who do you like to work with?
Michelle Manley [00:19:54]:
I. You know, when I’m doing Reiki, I’ll share with, you know, pretty much everybody because I think Reiki is so universal and wonderful. But when I’m, like, really working heart to heart with somebody, I really tend to gravitate towards women over 40 who are sort of waking up and realizing they’ve been on autopilot for a while and that their life and they’re not embodying their lives, and they’re realizing that there’s more to life, but it’s not religion. So what is it? You know, how do I find myself again? And, all right, those are my people.
Amy Stone [00:20:27]:
Those are your people. Those are your people. So what. What are the. So you did this in two different changes. Like, so one is that you left. You left the fundamentalist religion. Was that at the start of your marriage, or were you both okay, so you left the fundamentalist religion at the start of your marriage because the person you fell in love with was not in the flock. Okay, so that is one change. And then you committed to this 12 year marriage. You’re in the marriage. And do you think that, do you think you would have stayed in the, in the flock, in the, in the faith if you had not met him?
Michelle Manley [00:21:00]:
I don’t think so. The entire time I was in the church, they kept telling me how rebellious I was. I never fit in there because I questioned everything and, you know, was beginning to feel incredibly restrictive and just not. I saw a lot of hypocrisy, I heard a lot of great theories, and then in practice, that was not what I saw applied. So I was one foot out the door there as well.
Amy Stone [00:21:28]:
Okay, so very good. So when we talked about this a second ago, I noticed that you had, you gave a very accepted ownership. Like you were very, you were very much taking ownership of your, your part in both of these things, which, from my standpoint represents healing. Right. When we first leave something that’s really, really painful, it’s like everything is projected at the, you know, the terrible person, the terrible situation, all of those things. And then through the healing process, we get to acceptance. Would you also say not everybody gets here, and I don’t think everybody has to get here, but is there a piece of you that can look at what you got out of the marriage, out of the relationship, out of the, the faith group and actually point to things that you see as beneficial from the experience or not at all?
Michelle Manley [00:22:17]:
Oh, absolutely, absolutely. Like, in terms of my time with the church, I am so much more discerning. I watch actions, not words. I mean, there’s so much in my growth that can be tied back to that and the marriage. Well, I reclaimed myself and I think I almost had to lose myself in some ways. It was kind of. I can’t imagine my healing journey without that part.
Amy Stone [00:22:41]:
Okay.
Michelle Manley [00:22:42]:
It almost feels like it was just part of my journey.
Amy Stone [00:22:46]:
Yeah, that’s okay. And I think that that’s. I mean, it’s kind of a crazy thing. I don’t think every journey has that or has to have it by a long shot. But I thought, when I heard you say that, I thought, I wonder if she’s got a piece of this that is there because not everything happens for a beneficial reason. And I’m sure you would have loved to have had a life story that did not include the hardship. But sometimes we can look back and say, oh, you know what? I Did actually. This was hard. There are parts of this that really stunk, but I did actually learn these pieces of it that I might not have otherwise. So I appreciate you sharing that. All right, so in a minute, we’re going to do the final questions. I want to give you a chance to tell you told us what you were doing in helping people as a Reiki person Energy healer Reiki. Is that right? Reiki energy Helix. There you go. Reiki person. Sorry about that. So I want to give you a chance to directly tell people how they can connect with you and find you online.
Michelle Manley [00:23:46]:
Yes. I am on Facebook under Michelle Manley and it’s my face. So easy to find. And online it’s michellemmanley.com home. H O M E will bring you to my my website and you can find a bit more about what I do and how I navigate the world.
Amy Stone [00:24:08]:
Fantastic. So the easiest way for anybody who’s listening, who’s out there in the world, like on a walk, on a treadmill, doing things like that, the easiest way to get those links is to be subscribed to my community, the imperfect adulting email community. And then I email them directly to you. You can click on them. They’ll also be found in the show notes and on YouTube. All right, we’re going to do the three rapid fire questions just for fun, not about any of the things that we talked about before. The idea is that you just answer with whatever comes to mind. All right. Have you ever or would you jump out of an airplane?
Michelle Manley [00:24:44]:
Oh, I’ve considered it. I think at this point, I’m 57. I think my window for that has passed for me comfortably. But when I was younger, I really considered it. So I think if the right opportunity had presented itself, I probably would have done it.
Amy Stone [00:24:57]:
Okay. All right, very good. Do you read or listen to books? And if so, what is a recent book that you have read that you want to share with us?
Michelle Manley [00:25:06]:
Oh, yes, I love reading. I love audiobooks. I’m rereading the Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron right now. And I’m also awakening Somatic Intelligence. It’s a wonderful book on how to come into greater communion with your body.
Amy Stone [00:25:21]:
Very nice. Are you doing your artist pages in the morning? You’re writing pages? Yes, morning pages.
Michelle Manley [00:25:27]:
Morning pages.
Amy Stone [00:25:28]:
Morning pages. All right, very good. So what is your favorite store for shopping? A place where if you got a gift card for a thousand dollars, you’d be thrilled.
Michelle Manley [00:25:37]:
Oh, that’s a tough one. Where do I go? Probably lush.
Amy Stone [00:25:43]:
Oh, with the. The bath bombs.
Michelle Manley [00:25:46]:
Yeah.
Amy Stone [00:25:47]:
Very nice that when I walk by that store, it is like such a perfume explosion. It’s such a perfume explosion. That’s that great answer. All right. That’s it. Michelle Manning, thank you so much for being a wonderful guest today on the show.
Michelle Manley [00:26:02]:
Thank you.