Libsyn Directory

378: Summer Series: Healing Your Abandonment Wound with Susan Anderson

The Michelle Chalfant Show — Life from the Adult Chair

Release Date: 08/03/2023

496: Brain Fog & The M-Factor: Tamsen Fadal on the Truth About Menopause

The Michelle Chalfant Show — Life from the Adult Chair

Today, I’m joined by Emmy-winning journalist and menopause advocate Tamsen Fadal, whose own unexpected journey through perimenopause and menopause led her to create a global movement of education, support, and empowerment for women. After years of brain fog, exhaustion, misdiagnosis, and silence from the medical system, Tamsen began using her voice and platform to help women understand what is happening in their bodies and how to advocate for real care. In this episode, we talk honestly about symptoms, hormones, relationships, sex, confidence, and why so many women feel blindsided by this...

495: What Happens After We Die? Debra Martin’s Near Death Experiences and Divine Healing

The Michelle Chalfant Show — Life from the Adult Chair

Today, I’m joined by Debra Martin, a certified research medium whose three near death experiences completely transformed her life. Each experience opened her to the reality of the soul, the presence of divine love, and a deeper understanding of why we are here. Debra shares how these moments awakened her spiritual gifts, led her into unexpected healing abilities, and helped her remember who we truly are beneath the human experience. Her stories offer hope, validation, and a powerful reminder that we are never alone. In this episode, we explore: What Debra experienced during her three...

494: Shift From Victim to Empowered with One Simple Question

The Michelle Chalfant Show — Life from the Adult Chair

What does it really mean to live a soul aligned life, and why does it often feel so hard, even when I know it leads to more peace, joy, and freedom? In this episode, I break down what a soul aligned life actually is (beyond spiritual buzzwords), why it can feel like everything is “falling apart” when you are actually waking up, and how to start consciously partnering with the part of you that is 99.99% Source instead of the 0.01% that is ego. I share practical, grounded tools for navigating big life transitions, sitting with uncomfortable emotions without getting swallowed by them, and...

493: How to Reprogram Your Autopilot and Finally Heal Anxiety with Elizabeth April

The Michelle Chalfant Show — Life from the Adult Chair

In this episode, I’m joined by Elizabeth April, author of Your Anxiety Is Giving Me Anxiety. We explore a powerful reframe of anxiety, not as something to fix or eliminate, but as an intelligent signal from the nervous system pointing toward healing and deeper self-awareness. Elizabeth shares her framework for identifying whether anxiety is rooted in the past, present, or future, why high-functioning tendencies often come from overstimulation, and how her Renew Technique helps move out of survival mode and into lasting nervous system regulation, trust, and conscious awareness aligned with...

492: Human Design Made Simple with Emma Dunwoody

The Michelle Chalfant Show — Life from the Adult Chair

In this episode, I’m joined by behavioral coach and human design expert Emma Dunwoody, author of Human Design Made Simple. Emma and I explore what human design really is (beyond the “woo”), how it maps your unique energetic blueprint and why understanding your type can feel like a deep exhale of self-permission. This conversation is both practical and inspiring. We talk about why so many of us are exhausted and burned out, how women’s energy cycles differ from the 24-hour “hustle” model, and how human design can guide the way you work, parent and build relationships. Emma shares...

491: A New Year Requires a New You

The Michelle Chalfant Show — Life from the Adult Chair

As we step into 2026, I’ve been reflecting on why so many New Year resolutions fall apart and why real change can feel so elusive, even when we want it deeply. After a year of shedding old patterns and facing familiar triggers, many of us are ready for something that truly feels different. I explore lasting change is not about trying harder or setting better goals but about creating an identity shift from the inside out. When who you are begins to change, your life naturally follows, and this year no longer has to repeat the last. In this episode, I share: Why New Year resolutions rarely...

490: From “Yes Girl” to Sovereign Woman with Shannon Yonge

The Michelle Chalfant Show — Life from the Adult Chair

In this episode, I’m joined by one of our incredible Adult Chair® Master Coaches, Shannon Yonge. Shannon shares her powerful story of how she went from living life for everyone else, constantly saying yes, ignoring her needs, and feeling disconnected from herself, to reconnecting with her intuition, setting boundaries, and stepping fully into her sovereignty. This conversation is deeply personal and incredibly relatable. We talk about how tuning into the body can guide us back to our truth, how to break free from people-pleasing, and why learning to say no, without needing to explain, can...

489: Rewiring PTSD and Healing Trauma with Mike Zeller

The Michelle Chalfant Show — Life from the Adult Chair

Trigger Warning: This episode includes discussion of suicide, PTSD, and trauma. Please listen with care and step away if needed. Today, I’m sitting down with someone I’ve known for years and whose story moved me deeply. Mike Zeller joins me for a powerful, raw, and eye opening conversation about trauma, healing, nervous system regulation, and the life changing breakthroughs that helped save his wife, his marriage, and his family. Mike opens up about the traumatic season that began when his daughter was born. His wife, a three time suicide survivor with complex childhood trauma, spiraled...

488: Are Your Angels and Guides Trying to Reach You?

The Michelle Chalfant Show — Life from the Adult Chair

Today, I’m diving into a topic that has touched so many of you and continues to show up in my own life in the most surprising, beautiful ways. We’re exploring the signs, synchronicities, and gentle nudges from the universe that remind us we’re never walking this path alone. From repeating numbers to feathers, birds, coins, and even unexpected phrases from strangers, signs are everywhere when we slow down enough to notice them. Whether you’ve been seeing 11:11 on the clock, finding pennies in random places, or simply sensing that something bigger is guiding you, this episode will help...

487: Reclaiming the You Beneath the Conditioning with Anjie Hipple (Part II)

The Michelle Chalfant Show — Life from the Adult Chair

In this powerful follow-up conversation, I welcome Anjie Hipple back to go even deeper into subconscious healing, energetic transformation, and spiritual awakening. Together, we explore how limiting beliefs form, how to clear them, and how to access the higher self for lasting freedom. Anjie shares how repressed emotions and old subconscious “commands” shape our lives until we learn to reprogram them. Anjie also channels Judah and Mary Magdalene, offering wisdom about the rising consciousness on the planet, inner peace amid global change, and the balance of the divine feminine and...

More Episodes

Rejection is one of the greatest fears we have as humans. Even simple rejections like not making the team or being chosen for a job – things we know aren’t personal – still sting deeply. Why does rejection seem to hit at the core of who we are?

Susan Anderson began asking this question when she went through a personal experience of abandonment. The love of her life left her suddenly for another woman, and although she was a practicing psychotherapist with immense knowledge of the human mind, she still found herself in emotional crisis and doubting herself and her worthiness.

As she dug more into this topic, she discovered that we as humans have a primal abandonment wound – a universal experience that begins when we are born and go from deep union and connection with our mother to a feeling of being separate. This creates deep shame and causes us to search for belonging and worthiness throughout our lives.

And this is why rejection hurts so much: it triggers this deep fear that we might not belong and we might not be worthy.

In this fascinating and important episode, Susan shares her discoveries on the topic of abandonment, why we experience it the ways we do and how a whole host of other issues in our lives can stem from this wound. We discussed why healing abandonment trauma looks different from healing other traumas, the five stages of healing and the tools (all of which are part of The Adult Chair® model) that can heal it.

Listen to discover:

The hidden shame we all have and the root of it
The different defenses we put up against shame
How to raise our awareness to our abandonment wounds
Why healing from abandonment looks different from other forms of trauma healing
Steps to healing abandonment wounding
How working with abandonment wounding can help with people pleasing, codependency and self-sabotage
5 stages of processing abandonment hurt

The primal wound of abandonment is also an opportunity for primal healing. When we learn to love and accept ourselves as worthy and recognize how deeply connected we truly are, we not only heal our abandonment wound, but we can change almost anything in our lives.

"The loneliness is sort of a secondary feeling. The primary is the primal fear and the shame of maybe never being worthy of keeping someone." - Susan Anderson

"The personality itself is a defense against the shame." - Susan Anderson

"When we look at a relationship that ends, it is a retraumatization of what we experienced as a child." - Michelle Chalfant

"The history that leads to a strong reaction in adulthood to abandonment could be very subtle." - Susan Anderson

"You have to take this step, and you go through it...The pain is there, but you go through it, and you get to the other side." - Michelle Chalfant

"Your adult self can now develop an intense, loving, reassuring relationship with your inner child." - Susan Anderson

"It turns this awful emotional crisis that's so painful into an opportunity for something that's probably long overdue, which is self-love." - Susan Anderson

"Doing these steps, you will become an even better, stronger, more self-loving person on the other side of it...even stronger than you were prior to this abandonment wound." - Michelle Chalfant

"The kind of self-love that we're developing is deeper, more mature self-love...the kind of love you give yourself because you respect yourself so much." - Susan Anderson

"We have to stop looking outside of self and turn our attention inward. That's where healing, that's where love, that's where hope, that's where peace, that's where all the things are that we're looking for outside of ourselves." - Michelle Chalfant

"When the adult gets strong and is in command, it limits all of this self-sabotage." - Susan Anderson

LINKS & RESOURCES

Susan Anderson Website

https://www.abandonment.net/

https://abandonmentrecovery.com

"The Journey from Abandonment to Healing" (Susan Anderson book)

https://www.amazon.com/Journey-Abandonment-Healing-Surviving-Recovering/dp/0425273539

Green Chef

https://www.greenchef.com/adult50

Use code ADULT50 for 50% off + free shipping

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