I love sharing stories that show what is possible for you and give you the hope and inspiration you need to move towards what you want in your life and partnership. Here’s a very powerful one.
My client, "Daniella" and I just wrapped up working together for six months. Things were incredibly hard for her when she came to me. She told me, “When I first started working with you I had zero faith. I was down in a dark black hole. I honestly thought this kind of change wasn’t possible.
"My husband had told me, in no uncertain terms, that he wanted to leave. We had reached a challenging place in our marriage – seemingly a point of no return. We were arguing constantly, couldn’t seem to find a resolution, ever, couldn’t seem to find happiness with each other, or with our selves. It was a constant battle that we were simply unable to resolve, having tried everything.”
They’d even been to therapists who told them they weren’t connecting and that may mean the end of their marriage.
“I was highly stressed, anxious, desperate, helpless, hopeless, but at the same time, determined to do absolutely anything to change my husband’s mind and save my marriage (for the sake of us, myself, and our son).“
So Daniella courageously reached out to me and decided to work with me, even though it was difficult for her to muster the energy. What happened next amazed her: After only one month of applying herself to our coaching, her husband stopped wanting to leave and started talking about how lucky he was to have her —and how proud he was of how she was shifting.
She herself saw it too— she was calmer, more steady emotionally, and able to tackle difficult and confronting situations, with calm, poise, and grace. This felt like a HUGE change for her.
Her husband started shifting too - he came forward, started to show her love and affection again, in his own way. Like holding her hand, wrapping his arm around her shoulder from time to time— and started referring to ‘we’ and ‘us’ again, which had disappeared for a while.
He even sent her a loving email that “took my breath away and made my heart skip a beat all at once”. At just one month in she told me she could feel that she “was on the way back to a deep, loving relationship with him, and it feels so good.” But it didn’t stop there.
By the time we were done with our work together she reported “Things are so incredibly GOOD! My husband and are in a better place now in our marriage than we ever have been. It is safe to say that our marriage being pushed to the brink was the best thing that ever happened to us, as a married couple – as it resulted in me finding Hannah and finding peace, both within myself and within my marriage.
"It resulted in me making the most significant changes in my life that have impacted not only my marriage, but my relationship with myself, my son, my family and my closest friends. It just blows my mind it's so good! The change in my husband, too, is not something I could have believed before.”
So how did this all happen?
Well, it was not a magic pill I gave her. She was committed to creating real change and determined to save her marriage. And knew she didn’t know how to do it on her own. That guidance, skill-building, and encouragement were essential if there was any chance for them.
As she put it “It wasn’t a walk in the park. In order to find genuine happiness, I had to face some difficult stuff, and Hannah didn’t dance around this with me.”
One of her most powerful insights was a hard one, but shifted so much for her: "I ‘d been wanting my husband to show me love in the way that I really need to be showing it to myself. I’d been wrongly expecting that of him, and then had been critical of him when he hadn’t lived up to that expectation.“
"Hannah supported me during the difficult times of change and helped me with perseverance and positivity through it all. I did the hard work, but it would never have happened if she hadn’t kickstarted my journey and helped and encouraged me to see things through a different perspective, to open my mind to different ways of thinking and communicating and showing unconditional love and acceptance to myself.”
Beyond Her Marriage:
6 months after we first started working together, Daniella is a changed woman. Not only is there deeper connection, more ease, respect, and deep sense of support in her marriage, but she’ s learned how to drop the barriers in her own self to taking in love, feeling lovable, and soaking up all that is good in her life and in herself. She has learned how to work with and overcome self doubt, self sabotage, unhappiness, and lack of fulfillment, too.
“My feelings used to hinge on him and whether we would say together or not. Throughout this process I’ve realized everything hinges on me — how I talk to myself and the support I give to myself will determine how my life plays out. It’s a total mental, emotional, and physical shift. People even say I look different!
“This work has saved my marriage for sure. It's saved MYSELF. It's filtered down into so many aspects of my life. Self love exists for me now, I take care of myself, I’m nice to myself, I appreciate and congratulate myself, I look in the mirror and like what I see, I’m generally and genuinely happier, more content, more accepting, less judgmental (of myself and of others), more vulnerable – and the effect of all of this is stronger relationships across all platforms of my life. It's been life-changing and so worth it!”
Daniella went all in for herself, and it changed her life in all the best ways. This is what marriage and life crises can open the doorway to, if we let them.
If you are inspired by Daniella’s story, please know that you have the same human capacity as she does. When we set our minds to something, and really go all in, we make mountains move. It is the commitment to making change that begins all amazing healing journeys like Daniella’s.
May this story inspire you to create the change you want in your own love life. Even if it feels impossible now, what you want is possible—perhaps even just around the next bend— if you just get started moving towards it.
Never tell yourself it isn’t.
With Love,
Hannah