Healing From Narcissistic Abuse (with Nikki LaCroce)
Release Date: 04/21/2024
Why Business Leaders Need Negotiation Skills
Phoenix and Flame Podcast
First aired August 23, 2026 Annette Mullin spent 24 years with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, nine of them as a crisis negotiator, eventually leading one of the busiest negotiation teams in the country — averaging over 100 call-outs a year. She worked patrol, sexual assault, internal affairs, and homicide, becoming LVMPD's first female homicide sergeant, before spending her final years as the department's director of employee wellness in the aftermath of the October 1 Mandalay Bay shooting, the largest mass shooting in U.S. history. Now a negotiation instructor and coach...
info_outline
Why Comedy Might Be the Best Medicine For Mental Health
Phoenix and Flame Podcast
First aired August 16, 2026 For over a decade, Dave Mowry couldn't get out of bed, couldn't shower, and couldn't walk to his own mailbox without waiting until dark so a neighbor wouldn't catch the look in his eyes. In 1994, a psychotic break sent the successful businessman and family man into a depression so deep it cost him his house, his career, and 14 years he calls his "lost years." He slept in his clothes for months at a time. At parties, he'd stand against the wall and pray no one came over to talk to him. Then, at his wife's urging, he walked into a stand-up comedy class for people...
info_outline
Why Imposter Syndrome Keeps Leaders Stuck
Phoenix and Flame Podcast
In this episode, Dana is joined by Kurt Bush, a trauma-informed coach who helps leaders move from imposter syndrome to authentic confidence. Kurt shares his own journey with imposter syndrome, from feeling like a fraud in corporate leadership meetings to realizing his true calling. He explains that to make a change, the pain of staying the same must become greater than the pain of changing, a threshold many of us fear crossing. Kurt introduces the ERT (Encounter + Reflection = Transformation) framework, a practical approach to help you get unstuck. He reveals why the first step to moving...
info_outline
Your Midlife 'Crisis' Might Be Burnout (with Jody Brooks)
Phoenix and Flame Podcast
A midlife crisis isn't actually a crisis. That's the challenge Jody Brooks puts to anyone who's ever felt lost, restless, or quietly convinced something's wrong with them somewhere around 40 or 50: what looks like burnout, and what people love to write off as a freakout, is more often a calling. His own arrived at lunchtime at the office, buzzing canteen and all, when he found himself sitting in a restroom cubicle, crying so hard he could barely breathe. No brutal meeting that morning. No disaster. Just the quiet moment his body picked to file its formal complaint: burnout wasn't a "rough...
info_outline
How You Can Find Hope After Rock Bottom (Aaron Ryan)
Phoenix and Flame Podcast
Two in the morning. Sitting on the toilet, clothed, bawling into a pillow, because a broken PC was the last thing standing between him and the self-employed life he wanted so badly he could feel it in his teeth. That's where my guest this week hit rock bottom: not one dramatic collapse, but months of computer problems piling on top of a dream that felt like it was never going to happen. A client shared one quote with him that day, and Aaron Ryan has carried it in his back pocket for almost twenty years since: "The temptation to quit is always greatest just before your greatest success." Aaron...
info_outline
How Your Body's Intuition Can Heal You (Rebecca Russell)
Phoenix and Flame Podcast
Four years of chronic pain. A fibromyalgia diagnosis. Muscle relaxers, pain pills, migraines, MRI after MRI. And through all of it, my guest this week kept hearing the same quiet voice: something doesn't fit. Rebecca Russell listened to it anyway, tracked down a neurosurgeon, and asked for one test nobody else had run: a discogram. It found the bulging disc that had been the actual problem the whole time, and eighty-five percent of her symptoms disappeared after surgery. Rebecca is a metabolism and lifestyle coach, certified essential oil specialist, and author who's spent more than three...
info_outline
Why Successful Entrepreneurs Set Boundaries (Chris Shurian)
Phoenix and Flame Podcast
My guest this week has a word for himself I'd never heard before: "entrepreholic." Over 39 years, Chris Shurian has built, operated, bought, broken, and resurrected companies in remodeling, construction, manufacturing, real estate development, foreign investment, hospitality, restaurants, and retail. He's also survived cancer and finished two Ironmans. And in 2008, when the economy crashed, he was so extended, so "all in, all in, all in," as he puts it, that he spent the next two years meeting with his banker once a week just to survive it. We talk about what it actually felt like to launch...
info_outline
Why Loneliness Hits the Young Hardest (Dr. Anthony Silard)
Phoenix and Flame Podcast
Picture a hand-written sign taped to a bus stop in Japan: "I'm 87, I don't have a family. Would some family take me?" No one answered. He died a couple of months later. That story, from my guest this week, is the starkest snapshot I've ever heard of what loneliness researcher Dr. Anthony Silard calls a global epidemic, and the twist is who it's hitting hardest: not the oldest of us, but the youngest. Anthony is a professor of Leadership and Organizational Psychology and an internationally recognized authority on relationships, emotional intelligence, and personal transformation, and he's the...
info_outline
Avoiding Failure Guarantees It (with Mark DeCarlo)
Phoenix and Flame Podcast
Picture a high school track meet: a sixteen-pound shot put thrown the wrong direction, a burst spleen, three weeks in a hospital bed. That's how my guest this week learned, at sixteen or seventeen, that avoiding failure is exactly what guarantees it. Mark DeCarlo woke up after three days unconscious to a doctor telling him ten more minutes and he'd have been dead, and he's spent every day since orienting his choices around one question: will this make me more happy or less happy? Mark is an Emmy award-winning comedian, bestselling author, and in-demand corporate speaker and leadership trainer...
info_outline
Why Young Adults Are More Stuck Than Ever (Joanna Lilley)
Phoenix and Flame Podcast
Would your young adult be able to survive without you? That's the question my guest Joanna Lilley says every parent should be able to answer, and if your gut response is "no" or "I don't know," she's got thoughts. Joanna is a therapeutic consultant who works exclusively with what she calls "emerging adults," people 18 and up who are unraveling in college or not thriving in adulthood, and after years in the field she's convinced young adults are more stuck than ever: not because they're lazy, but because they're paralyzed by too many options and too little structure. Joanna's practice, Lilley...
info_outlineMy guest today told me her podcast intro calls are basically vetting sessions, because she doesn't want boring people on her show. "Small talk is virtually non-existent," she said. "It's basically like, hi, how are you doing? And one of my best friends said this: I don't care about the weather, I want to know what your deepest trauma is." That's Nikki LaCroce, and once we got into her deepest trauma, I understood exactly why she vets her guests. In early 2021, Nikki experienced what she calls her personal Armageddon: leaving a decade-long relationship with a covert narcissist while simultaneously losing her mother in the middle of the pandemic.
Nikki is a podcaster (Can I Just Say?) and, like me, someone who believes the most important conversations aren't the polished ones, they're the real ones. We talk about the difference between overt and covert narcissism (her ex was covert, which she says made the gaslighting and love bombing almost impossible to name at the time), the "pain threshold" that finally pushes someone to leave, and why one of her best friends telling her "you're asking for the bare minimum and you're not even getting that" was the sentence that changed everything.
We also get honest about the guilt that lingers after you leave, especially when leaving means you also lose time you'll never get back with people you love, and the deal-breakers exercise Nikki did to rebuild her own sense of self from the ground up.
Watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VPHk5B8Kvc
In this episode
- Why covert narcissism is so much harder to spot than the "textbook" version, and why gaslighting doesn't always look dramatic
- What the "pain threshold" is, and why it takes crossing it to finally leave an unhealthy relationship
- How gratitude helped Nikki hold onto her sense of self while she was still in the relationship, not just after
- Why regaining your sense of self, not the breakup itself, is the hardest part of leaving a narcissist
- The deal-breakers exercise Nikki used to rebuild her own standards for a relationship
- How to release the guilt and shame that linger after you leave, especially the guilt over time you can't get back
Timestamps
- (00:01) Welcome and guest intro: meet podcaster Nikki LaCroce
- (05:38) The 2017 move to Seattle, and the toxic job that came before it
- (11:52) Starting therapy, and the therapist who said "if you're going to do this, you commit to going weekly"
- (12:12) The "pain threshold": what it takes before we're willing to do the work of change
- (18:21) The intersection of gratitude, mental health, and connection
- (22:41) Covert vs. overt narcissism, and why Nikki didn't recognize love bombing and gaslighting as they were happening
- (28:21) You deserve to be freed from the abuse, and you deserve to heal from it
- (33:19) Releasing guilt and shame after leaving an abusive relationship
- (35:53) Why it takes an average of seven tries to leave an abusive relationship
- (38:07) The deal-breakers exercise: rebuilding your own standards from scratch
About Nikki LaCroce
Nikki LaCroce was raised in the suburbs of Philadelphia and moved to the West Coast in 2017. In early 2021 she left a decade-long abusive relationship while simultaneously facing the unexpected loss of her mother amid the pandemic. She hosts the podcast "Can I Just Say?"
Listen to her show wherever you get podcasts, visit canijustsaypodcast.com, or follow her on social media at Nikki LaCroce.
Favorite quotes
"You're asking for the bare minimum and you're not even getting that." —a friend's words to Nikki LaCroce, the turning-point moment she describes
"Gratitude and anxiety can exist at the same time." —Nikki LaCroce's therapist, as relayed by Nikki
"The hardest part about leaving a narcissistic abusive relationship with somebody is regaining your sense of self." —Nikki LaCroce's therapist, as relayed by Nikki
Resources mentioned
- "Can I Just Say?": Nikki's podcast, available wherever you listen to podcasts
- CanIJustSayPodcast.com: Nikki's website
Related episodes
For more on narcissistic abuse and rebuilding after it, try:
- Trauma Impact: From Codependency to Self-Mastery: Amanda Kate's parallel story of surviving chronic narcissistic abuse and reclaiming her sense of self.
- Surviving Gaslighters and Manipulators: more on the gaslighting patterns Nikki describes living through with a covert narcissist.
Subscribe & connect
If this episode gave you something to sit with, follow Phoenix and Flame so you never miss an episode: all apps in one place, or jump straight to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or YouTube. And if it moved you, leave a review; it's the easiest way to help another listener find the show.
Learn more about Phoenix and Flame, connect with Dana, and listen to more episodes here.
Curious where your own boundaries stand? Take my free Work Boundaries Quiz: danaskaggs.com/quiz