Shawniel Chamanlal: Breaking the Patterns a Toxic Ex Left

Shawniel Chamanlal asks new clients a question that sounds simple: what was your frame of reference growing up for how a relationship is supposed to work? Most people have never been asked, and the answer explains a lot about who they keep ending up with.

Our guest this episode is Shawniel Chamanlal, a licensed clinical social worker, certified trauma therapist and empowerment speaker who founded Healing Springs Wellness Center in Plantsville, Connecticut. The center runs counseling alongside nutrition and holistic services, works with a team of therapists in person and online, and is built around trauma-focused care. Shawniel's route into the field was her own: raised by a single mother after her father returned to Jamaica, carrying abandonment patterns into adult relationships, and doing the reckoning after a seven-year relationship and engagement ended.

In this episode she and Lisa cover how these patterns start, in childhood or in a single adult relationship that reshapes how you see yourself, and how you notice one running. The signal is a recurring feeling rather than a recurring situation: not feeling prioritized, a physical reaction you talk yourself out of, the same body sensation with different people. Shawniel explains EMDR, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, as a way of unfiling a traumatic memory from the negative belief attached to it. Lisa adds that Chris found it powerful in very few sessions.

They also talk about inner child work and asking that younger version of yourself what it needs, why fear of betrayal generalizes onto safe people too, why a secure relationship can register as boring or as waiting for the other shoe, and how to tell you are actually healing: boundaries you can hold, needs you can state, conflict you can move through without ending the relationship. Shawniel closes with a client whose work reached both her mother and her daughter.

As always, this is strategic education, not legal or mental-health advice for your specific situation.

🎓 What you'll learn

• How to spot an unhealed pattern by the recurring feeling rather than the recurring situation
• What EMDR does with a traumatic memory and the belief filed alongside it
• Why journaling works as a mirror, and what to look for reading it back
• How inner child work gives you something to do with a trigger besides suppress it
• Why a healthy relationship can feel boring or frightening after years of conditioning
• The signs you are genuinely healing, from boundaries to naming your non-negotiables
• How one parent's healing changes what their children learn about relationships

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 Shawniel's practice, and what led her into the work
3:00 Where relationship patterns start, in childhood or a single adult relationship
6:30 Recognizing an unhealed pattern: recurring feelings and body signals
8:30 Journaling as a mirror, and what forty years of it shows
11:30 Fear of betrayal, and why the mind generalizes onto safe people
14:00 EMDR, and why triggers still surface after the work
16:30 Moving from fear to curiosity: mindfulness, inner child work, grounding
21:00 Healing is not linear, and duality is allowed
25:00 Why a secure relationship can feel boring, and knowing you are healing
33:00 The ripple effect through a family, and a client's story

Keep going 💜
Book a free 30-minute discovery call and we'll help you map your next steps: https://beentheregotout.com/call
📘 Been There Got Out: Toxic Relationships, High-Conflict Divorce, and How to Stay Sane Under Insane Circumstances — https://www.amazon.com/dp/194627495X
📘 Been There Got Out: When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You (our parental-alienation book) — https://www.amazon.com/dp/1967674183
🔗 Healing Springs Wellness Center: https://healingspringswellness.com/

About Been There Got Out
Chris Barry and Lisa Johnson are high-conflict divorce, custody, and co-parenting strategists, and the founders of Been There Got Out. They know these cases from the inside: both have successfully represented themselves in family court. Few attorneys have a playbook for a case like this — Chris and Lisa write yours with you, so you and your kids can get through it as unscathed as possible.