Maisie Smith-Lovett: Trauma, Stress, and Your Gut

You are eating carefully. You are moving your body. Your health is going backwards anyway. Anyone deep in a long court fight will recognize it, and Maisie Smith-Lovett says the thing working against you is not your effort.

Maisie Smith-Lovett is a holistic health practitioner, trauma healer, and the CEO and founder of MSL Holistic Wellness Coaching, which she has been running for over a decade. She came into the work through fitness and moved toward the question underneath it, which is how hidden stress and old trauma show up in the gut, the hormones, and the metabolism. She is also a mother of three young children, and a fair amount of this conversation is her describing what she does in her own house.

She explains what a nervous system stuck in fight or flight does to digestion and inflammation, and why the body reads a slow-moving legal battle the same way it reads immediate danger. She has a framework for cravings that Lisa had not heard before: crunchy points at built-up frustration held in the jaw, neck, and shoulders, while sweet and soft points at a shortage of connection. She talks about where emotion goes when you keep pushing it to the back burner, and why the back and the hips end up carrying it.

The practical half is about what fits into a life that has no room in it. Five minutes, split however you like. Journaling with a structure rather than emptying your head onto a page. Grounding through the five senses when your thoughts will not stop cycling. Vegetables at every meal, fats before bed, magnesium for a nervous system that will not settle. Ten to twelve minutes of movement that is kind to the body instead of an hour meant to punish it. She and Lisa also talk about the six parts Maisie says make up self-power, the shame that follows accomplished people out of these relationships, and grieving a version of yourself you are done being.

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

🎓 What you'll learn

• What chronic fight or flight does to digestion, inflammation, hormones, and sleep
• Why hard workouts can stall your progress when your stress load is already high
• Cravings as information: what crunchy and what sweet are each pointing at
• Where suppressed emotion tends to settle physically, and what that feels like
• The five minutes a day version of self-care, and what to actually do with them
• Journaling with a structure rather than emptying your head onto the page
• The six parts Maisie says have to be intact for self-power to exist
• A one-minute breathing check that tells you whether you are stress breathing

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 What chronic fight or flight does to your digestion
5:00 Working out harder and still gaining weight
7:00 Cravings as signals: crunchy versus sweet
9:00 Where suppressed emotion goes in the body
11:00 Five minutes a day, and journaling with a structure
16:00 What her kids picked up from watching her do it
19:00 The six-part self, and the shame that keeps people stuck
23:00 Grieving an older version of yourself
28:00 Food, breath, and movement that is not punishment

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
🔗 MSL Holistic Wellness Coaching: https://mslwellness.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.