Breaking Old Patterns: Finding Self-Love, Healing, and the Power of Your Story

In this episode of the Captivate the Mic podcast, host Elaine Williams welcomes transformational guide Dr. Jen Casper. Dr. Jen shares her deeply personal journey through a series of challenging relationships— from short-lived marriages to living with a narcissist. Through these trials, one theme emerged: her need to truly love and value herself. By learning to honor her own worth, Dr. Jen discovered the key to attracting a healthy, relationship—one that exceeded her dreams.

Elaine and Dr. Jen discuss the importance of storytelling: how recounting our lives with and vulnerability can not only help us heal, but also inspire others to grow. They talk about the delicate process of refining a story for different contexts, the power of emotional resonance, and the importance of compassion toward oneself during the journey of personal transformation.

What You’ll Learn:

•How self-love acts as the foundation for attracting healthier relationships.

•Ways to break free from harmful relationship patterns.

•The importance of learning and integrating lessons from each relationship to move closer to what you desire.

•Tips on refining personal stories for maximum impact and emotional connection—whether you’re sharing as a guest on a podcast or telling your story on stage.

•Why storytelling is a timeless tool for healing, personal growth, and inspiring positive change in others.

Takeaways:

•Self-Worth Comes First: You can’t fully accept love from someone else until you genuinely love and understand yourself.

•Boundaries and Discernment: Learning to recognize red flags and trusting your inner voice will help guide you toward healthier connections.

•Storytelling as a Healer: Sharing your story can foster deeper connections, help others feel less alone, and strengthen your own sense of purpose.

•Continuous Evolution: Your personal narrative will evolve as you grow. Be willing to revisit and refine the way you present your story.

Action Steps:

•Reflect on the patterns in your past relationships. What recurring lessons can you identify?

•Practice self-love daily by journaling about what truly matters to you.

•If you’re sharing your story, consider where you can tighten the narrative to keep listeners engaged and emotionally invested.

Dr. Jen Casper is a “doctor of soulful transformations” dedicated to helping clients identify and shift limiting beliefs and patterns.  Learn more about her:  JenCasper.com.

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•Instagram: @elainewilliamsfun

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Transcript

0:18

it's Elaine Williams here, and I'm really happy that you are here and tuning in. This is a really cool. Conversation. I had with doctor, Jen Casper, who is a metaphysical coach guide. She does many things, and this is her story. Of the self-love and the healing. That she had to do. In order to attract healthy love and the love of her life. And she rambles a little bit, and then I give her some very cool. Coaching after. If you've ever worried, if your story was a little rambly or how to tighten something. up, but still keep the power of it. This is a great episode. It's one of my favorite things is to help tighten. Stories up. Please enjoy. And if you love this, please. Subscribe rate, review and share because. My mission. One is to help heal the world with love and laughter. After one story. story. one episode. One talk at a time. And you're part of that. I'm so happy. happy. that. We're connected. Please. Please. enjoy and. I hope to see you on the stage. And screen soon. Hi everybody. I am so excited and delighted with my guest today. Welcome to the Captivate the Mic podcast, Elaine Williams. We help you get better with your public speaking, your podcast guesting, and being confident on camera and all the things. And my guest today is Dr. Jen Casper. Dr. Jen, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me. I appreciate this opportunity. Yeah. I'm so delighted. And thank you, Dr. Jin, we were just having a conversation before we started the recording and I was telling her like all the things that are going on. And so Dr. Jin do you want to just say a little bit to the listeners about some of the work that you do? Sure. Sure. I am a doctor of soulful transformations. I help people transform their beliefs, their mindsets, their life. I am so grateful to be here. It's really exciting. Oh, thank you. It's, I don't know about you. I love transformation. I love coaching. I love personal development and I'm very clear. I had not done the landmark forum in November of 97 and had a huge spiritual awakening and was able to start to forgive. I knew I needed to intellectually, but I did not know how I could, I was, and so I had this huge awakening and then I was like, Oh my God, I want more of this. And I'm so grateful. And at the same time, I've also had my heart broken by coaches mentors who didn't keep their word. The personal development field, like any industry has good and bad people, has good people that have lost their way and, so this is, just, I feel like you and I. We are both so committed to making a difference with our stories and the work that we do. And sometimes the work that we do is to help people have the courage to come back and do more work. I haven't really talked about this, but clearly this is just bubbling up for me as I have had my heart broken by people who I thought really cared about me and my business who lied or who took my money and ran. And then I've come back and said, okay, what's the lesson here? Because the common denominator is me, right? If this keeps happening, okay, what am I supposed to learn here? Oh, practice more discernment. Maybe do more research. Maybe yes. I want to sign up, but maybe wait for a week. There's, We can always do something to change the pattern that we're in if we remember that we have choice. And sometimes, it's so hard because we don't remember we have choice. Or maybe I'm the only one, but anyway I love that you do this work. I think so many times we feel stuck and it's really the patterns and the habits. And the triggers and how do you break those sometimes, and all that being said, Dr. Jin, I would love if you could share, how you came to the work, how you created. This amazing partner. So many women I know have done so much work and done all the things and they're still yearning for a true partner. Tell us the story. In 2010, I had met my second husband and I learned many lessons within meeting him. Opening my business was one of them. But. I met, married, and divorced him in less than two years. Shortly after I, I left him, I had a dream. I had a dream about a man. And I'm walking along the street, and I pass him. And when I pass him, I feel all this love. I'm talking like heaven. I'm talking like So much love that like the tears, it's very emotional. And beside me is my guardian angel. And I said, who was that? My guardian angel says, he's someone you're going to meet. I said, soon. And my guardian angel said, very soon. And I said, that's great. What do I got to do? And my guardian angel said, just. Soon. You'll meet him in the perfect timing. When I woke up from that dream, I decided it was my mission to go find this man. I interviewed men for years. I interviewed some of the Not so good. I've interviewed some that were potential, but none of them actually fit the bill. So I met a man and we'll call him Texan and I was with Texan for seven years and I thought I had met the man that was in my dreams. I mean I had spent I spent weeks, months, Eileen, tracing this man's face with my fingertips in a meditation that I created. And I'd sit on the man's lap and I would trace his face with my fingers as if I was a blind person so that I knew when I met him, I would recognize him. So I had the Texan for seven years. And one night within that seven years, I heard the clock ticking. And in my previous relationships, that let me know that the relationship was about to end. I didn't know when, but I would be able to feel that the relationship had ended. I closed 2019 by letting go of the Texan. January 1st, I sat God down and I said, God, I'm ready. I want to meet the man I dreamt of. I want to feel that love that I know exists. Now, God said to me, Jen, are you sure? Now this should be you. A red flag to anybody. Okay, because if God says, are you sure that you wanted to go on this journey? Okay, and God is trying to grab your attention. One would take a pause, but no, I signed up for the full tour. Okay. I said, yes, of course I am 100 percent ready. That's it. Okay. Within a matter of less than three weeks, I met a man that we're going to call Beetlejuice. He was a narcissist. And I didn't know it at the time. I just thought he was, like, I had never been treated so well. And when I say the man knew that I liked Snappilies teas. Okay, and in the first couple dates that we had, he'd bring this Snapple iced tea that he had purchased at a convenience store for me. And in my belief system, this was, I had never had to buy anything from him. It's an iced tea. Okay, 1. 50 at your local convenience store, okay, and I am ecstatic because a man thought to remember the kind of iced tea I liked and brought that on our dates. My vision of myself and what I was worthy of was so minimal that a 1. 50 Snapple iced tea lit me up. It's the thought too. It's the thought and the gesture and the time, but I get it. Yes. So it's bigger than a crumb. It's bigger than a crumb, but it's not like the Taj Mahal. So in a very short period of time of less than a month, I ended up moving in with a man. We were both, I was living with my sister and he was living with his dad. And so I thought it'd be a great idea. We'll get a place together because I thought I was in a relationship with Beetlejuice. I was. Everything but. I was his mom, I was his secretary, I was his travel agent, I was his caretaker, I was his housekeeper, I paid his bills, I did everything but I was not considered his girlfriend in his mind. So for 15 months it was the longest 15 months of my life. The lessons that I learned he broke me in places I didn't realize existed. Can I ask you how long it took, like within days you were like, Oh, or was it weeks or months? It was from the moment I met him to the moment I realized that I had made a mistake. It was six weeks. Okay. The day that we had signed our year lease was the day that everything fell apart. And I had gone to my mom's. Okay. And we hadn't moved stuff in the house yet, but I had signed the lease. I was committed. And I said, I think I made the biggest mistake of my life. She said that I'd be that bad. I said no, I really think this one's going to hurt this one. Over the course of those 15 months, my first husband and I are very close. We have three kids together. And he had helped me out and he took me aside and he said, Jen, do you know what you're doing? He says, cause I'm actually really concerned for you. I'm scared for you. And I said, I appreciate your concern for me. I promise you the kids are well and fine. I'm going to learn this lesson so well that I never ever have to do it again. And he patted me on the knee and he said, Jen, I just want you to remember that death is permanent. And he says, just to, so you know I'm really afraid for you. And I said I got this. My, my parents and my sister actually separated from me because they couldn't help me. Where I was something that I had to do, and I had to get myself out of it. I put myself there. It was a really bad morning. It was in July. And I took my shower to get ready for my day. And as the water started to come out of the shower spigot, I I called on God and I started to cry crocodile tears. The nasty crying where it's the nose is a mess. And I said how do I stop this? How do, how, what lesson am I supposed to learn right now that I can get out of this situation? And God said, love yourself. I said, tears are gone. And I said, you mean to tell me the only thing I need to do is love myself. And this all changes. God said, yeah, you love yourself more than anybody else can. And he will go away. I showered. I got dressed. I had spark in my life that I haven't had in my life in Decades. And I decided to learn how to love myself. So this became a full time job, this isn't just read a book, and then just go on with life. No. This was a full time job. I asked myself, what do you like? What do you like to eat? What do you like to do? What haven't you done? What is on your bucket list? I sat with a shadow book journal and I looked at life a whole new way. Now, I still had the narcissist. Beetlejuice was still living with me. He was living in a separate room. And he still was trying to do his antics. And the more that I loved myself, the less power he had over me. The more that I loved myself, the more my business grew. The more that I loved myself, The happier I was, and it didn't matter the people that were around me that were unhappy and miserable because I was loving myself. It took me about six weeks, it was August 10th of 2021. I was at my computer and God whispered in my ear for me to check Facebook. Okay, so I go over and I check Facebook and then God says, I want you to look at your friend request. Now I'm confused because there's no, there's usually an icon or there's a number or something with you if you have friend requests and I didn't have any. So then God said, look at your friend's suggestion. In my friend's suggestions was a man named Josh. And so I said, okay, so now what? God says, befriend him. So I did. And I closed it out and I went back to doing what I was doing. And within eight minutes. My friend request was accepted. The moment that friend request was accepted, that love drunk that they tell you about, where your head is like all foggy and just you're like wobbly, like the energy within me shifted and I literally just felt a wrinkle in time. There's something happening that I really need to pay attention to. And we started talking back and forth for a little bit. And I really liked this guy. So it took us a little bit about three or four days, and I met him. And when he got in my car, my first thought was, so this here, This is what you look like. And so we dated for a very short period of time and we got engaged. My relationship with Josh is very amazing, but the reason why it's so amazing is because I worked on myself and I loved myself and I created boundaries and I learned about myself. Because I manifested the life lessons of the husbands that I had, it prepared me for having this. Amazing relationship with my husband. I love myself more than enough and because I love myself more than enough, I can love him and I can feel the love that he has for me because he loves himself The transformation part of it is the fact that I had to learn who I was in order to be able to show up into the relationship. To be in the place that I am with him. And how long have you guys been together? We met in 2021. We just celebrated our two year anniversary in August. Cool. Awesome, and he's supportive and wonderful and all of it all of the things all the things The dream that I had, he's even more amazing than the man that I dreamt. He is truly a mirror image of who I am. Everyone that I had met before, all the men that I had interviewed before meeting him, were a mirror image of what I lacked within myself. They couldn't commit to me because I didn't commit to me. I didn't even know who I was. I had a name, okay, someone gave me that name, and I fulfilled everybody else's promises because I was in people pleasing mode, and since then I've gone into people pleasing recovery, and I have learned how to listen to myself closer, and when there's red flags, pay attention to those red flags. But the transformation part is actually about really doing the inner work and listening to self and recognizing that you're constantly changing. You're constantly shifting out of who you were and into who you are to become. I love it. I love it. Yay. Dr. Jen. Awesome. Thank you so much for that story. Is it okay if I give you a little feedback, please? Okay. And for everybody listening, like you want to have versions of your story, right? Because sometimes you're on a podcast and you need to have a five minute version. And sometimes if you're leading your own workshop, you have more wiggle room. And but, and I think of stories is I'm on the train, I'm with you, we're on the train. And then if some detail, sometimes I'm like wait, I'm off the train. I, this detail, wait, what? It's like when you're telling a joke, you want, you need the audience to be on the train with you so that they can do the punch. And so when you said I had this image of me sitting on the guy's lap, tracing his face. I don't know, for me, that was like, okay, it just was a little woo. So maybe. Either cut that or set it up differently. Just suggestions, right? And then when you said I met the guy, met, married and divorced the guy in two years, so that was not the narcissist no. Okay. So when we're telling a story, every little thing is that an important piece of information? What's the point of that? Is that you got the lesson quicker? So you met, married, divorced the guy two years, so that's 24 months, right? And then the narcissist guy was 15 months. So maybe if you have time for a longer story, you keep that in the two year guy and then the Beetlejuice guy. However, if you have shortened time, like my mind is going which guy was this? It's Beetlejuice, the two year guy or is Beetlejuice the, so just so I would take the two year guy out unless it's really important to the, that the pattern you were still learning this, you were learning the lessons and you were getting them quicker. I think that's what you were trying to say. And then you're with the Beetlejuice guy. So did you start connecting with Josh while you're still with the Beetlejuice guy? I wasn't clear on that transition. Sometimes we give details that we don't necessarily need to give. Because we want people on the train, with us, the whole time rooting. If you were going to do a shorter version of that story, like I was married, blah, blah, blah, and I still kept, picking not the right guy. And then, every woman I know has dated a narcissist, thank God we're talking about it more. Anyway, the whole key is you've had all these lessons and the biggest lesson was if you want to attract the life of your dreams, you got to love yourself first. And how exactly, when you hear the, the sign like love yourself. Okay, great. What the heck does that exactly mean? it's a process, right? And for a lot of us, it's a very challenging process. Especially if we focus on other people and their whole lives and recovering people, pleaser. And then the other thing is Do you have a guardian angel and God, is it two different voices? Could it be the same voice just for the sake of the story? Just like something to think about, right? Because my brain goes, oh, guardian angel. Oh God. Okay. How many voices are there? And maybe there's some clarity, or for the sake of artistic license, for the sake of this story, maybe we make them one entity. Does that make sense? Yes. And that's okay, it's obviously any story we tell, we need to be emotionally connected to it, it needs to be ours to tell, and there's poetic license. Artistic license for the sake of this story, right? Because the sake of the story is not yay, I have a perfect life. It's no, let me tell you my journey. I kept picking the wrong men. there was the ex-husband and then there was the seven year, there was the Texas guy, and then there was the two year guy. And so, maybe we tighten up the Texans part of it, but we we can make it shorter, right? You've got the less than seven years, then it was two years, it was 15 months. That's really the heart of it. We're talking about the pattern, right? Yes. So I feel like that is some ways you could tweak and tighten it up. And then, cause when you're telling a story, especially interview style podcast, it's almost better if you can tell this powerful story and then have people go, I want to ask questions. Or that's so inspiring. What else did you learn? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So does that make sense, Jen? It makes perfect sense. Thank you for all of your tips. I like it. Yeah. I think of storytelling. It's like we have this beautiful pot of stew, vegetable base, chicken base, however you like your stew. And then we add a bunch of stuff. And it's simmering and we stir it and then we put it on the back burner and then we go do things and we come back and we check on it. Oh, it needs a little bit more salt. Oh wait, let's put some basil. Let's put some, and ideally the story comes out slightly different every time cause it's coming from your heart. There's nothing I hate more. And then seeing a polished, canned. Story that's been over rehearsed. You can see some of the Ted talks. You're like, Oh gosh, this was so over rehearsed, right? A lot of them aren't, but there's a few. So I would rather you speak from your heart like you did and have it be a little bit messy or stumbling, but coming from your heart than quaffed thing that doesn't land because memory is information plus emotion. That equals long term memory and I'll give you an example. I had lunch with this woman probably a year ago and we met through a mutual friend. We were just getting to know each other and she shared this story how they were in Thailand. They had two kids. They wanted to adopt this other kid, but Thailand has all these weird rules. Anyway, they're literally Leaving to get on the plane and there's crazy traffic and her husband jumps on one of those like motorcycle courier guys It's like I'm gonna go get the paper So to go get the paper and like he did it He made it back in time to get on the plane so they could take the guy she told me that story a year ago, but I remember it and I just saw her last week. I said, I think about your husband jumping on the back of that motorbike because you had to get the paper from the embassy in order to bring the boy that you were adopting to America. And it stayed with me because it's moving and it's, so we remember things that move us. And so ideally every story we tell. Is educational, inspiring, motivating, transformational, all of the above, hopefully, but at least a couple of those. Right. Yeah I just, I love stories. That's how we learn, it's how we were telling stories in the cave before there was written word. It is one of the most human things we can do, and we're recording this in November. Last week was the election and. Half of the country is happy and half of the country is sad and we're all still processing, we're all unclenching. And one of the things I'm reminded of for the millionth time is the power of story. And, the Democratics went hard for TV ads and the Republicans. Shows to go totally different platforms, podcasts. So a TV ad saw a few million and the Joe Rogan podcast, 45 million views. I'm not trying to be political. I'm just trying to talk about the power of platforms, the power of storytelling and it's an exciting and overwhelming, time. And story will always be here. Anyway, but thank you so much. That inspires me so many women that I know, I didn't realize Dr. Jen. I picked narcissist for years. And I think the thing that saved me was I was so busy doing my own thing. I didn't totally surrender all of my life until I met the Australian and I was in this huge transition. I'm quitting my corporate training job and going full time as a coach. And so he caught me at a time when I had, I was more available than I ever had been. And I chose to continue being available because I was so swept away by this man. And then six months in, my friends started getting worried and all of a sudden he started getting really critical. He had been so adoring, he had love bombed me. I didn't know what any of that was. I am very auditory. And so talking on the phone every night for hours, it became like a drug for me. And having somebody adore me and tell me I could do it when I was so terrified to quit my corporate gig, I needed that, he fulfilled this need. And then he tried to break up with me over a text and I said, I don't accept this, but I was devastated, Jen, and I think it has actually taken me years to get over this one. Still learning, still processing, still learning how to love myself, right? It's a journey. You don't just go, okay, God said, love yourself Elaine. All good. All right. Like it's unraveling patterns, right? It's undoing patterns. It's lifting off the layers. It's looking at the things we've inherited that aren't ours. It's looking at the things in society that we're like, Oh, that's not mine. Okay. Oh, I was born into that. You know what? You can have it. Take it back. Thank you. You know what? You can take this back too. Oh, I need to be a size four to be lovable. Yeah. I I've given up on that one There's so much. Thank you so much, Dr. Jen. Tell us if people want to know more about you and your work, how can they find you? You can find me at JenCasper. com. I do workshops, I do retreats, I do classes that are online. You can come and hang out with me. We can do private one on one sessions in order to give you the transformation that you're looking for. And it's J E N C A S P E R. com for anyone who's driving and can't write it down. Jen Casper, like Casper, the ghost. So thank you so much for coming and sharing your story and being courageous enough to receive coaching like, whoa. And for anybody listening, please share this podcast rate, review, subscribe. Love it. It's going to be on my YouTube captivate the crowd. It's going to be on Apple, Spotify, all the things. Please share it, rate, review, subscribe, because that's how we grow. My mission is to help heal the world. One story, one video, one podcast, one joke at a time. And I need a whole crew of people to help me do it. Please help spread the word. Thank you so much. Dr. Jen. And we'll see everybody Soon, I hope to see you on the screen or the stage very soon. Bye everybody.