Amanda McKoy Flanagan: Grieving a Relationship That Hurt You

Loss is one of the few experiences that reaches everyone. Amanda McKoy Flanagan makes that point early in this conversation, and says she would put it above love on that list, because not everyone learns how to love, but nobody escapes losing something.

Our guest is Amanda McKoy Flanagan, a licensed master of social work who now works as a loss and empowerment coach, a writing coach, and an energy healer certified in Reiki, EFT tapping, and chakra balancing. She is the author of the award-winning memoir Trust Yourself to Be All In: Safe to Love and Let Go, which she wrote in the years after her brother died. She is also sober and in recovery, and a good deal of her language here comes out of that: doing esteemable things to build self-esteem, and asking what lengths you are willing to go to.

The reason Lisa wanted this episode is the guilt people carry about grieving a relationship that hurt them. Amanda's position is that there is no bad emotion and no bad part of you, only what you do with what comes up, and that shame can be the push that gets someone into healing in the first place. She works underneath the surface feeling to the fear holding it up, then tests whether the story attached to that fear is true.

They cover a lot of ground from there. Why healing has no finish line and is better understood as the ability to keep moving. What makes people stay put, which Amanda frames as preferring a familiar pain to an unknown one. How memoir writing returns a voice to someone who spent years being talked over. How small daily decisions compound into self-worth, illustrated by the five-dollar bouquet she bought herself when she first got sober. And the difference between being alone and being lonely, which she describes as the point where other people add to your life instead of supplying it.

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

🎓 What you'll learn

• Why divorce is a loss, and why grieving it does not mean you want the person back
• Removing "should" from how you talk about your own feelings
• How to find the fear underneath shame, anger, or guilt, and then test whether it is true
• Why healing has no finish line, and what progress looks like instead
• The reason familiar pain often wins over an unknown outcome
• How writing, including memoir, gives a voice back to someone who lost theirs
• Why small decisions rebuild self-worth faster than waiting for a big change
• The four-part list: gratitude, attributes, feelings, and what you still want to change

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 Normalizing grief, and why loss is not only about death
3:00 From grief coach to loss and empowerment coach
5:00 Writing a memoir, and getting your voice back
7:00 Shame, "should," and the fear underneath a hard feeling
11:00 Why familiar pain wins until it costs more than changing
15:00 What relationships reveal about what still needs healing
19:00 Small decisions, self-worth, and the five-dollar bouquet
22:00 Her book, and being alone without being lonely
25:00 Rediscovering what you actually like
29:00 The gratitude list, and finding the fear underneath
33:00 Where to find Amanda

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
🔗 Amanda McKoy Flanagan: https://www.amandamckoyflanagan.com/
🔗 Trust Yourself to Be All In: Safe to Love and Let Go: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C4MNCJGP

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.