From Broken to Boldness: Healing After a Narcissistic Marriage

Deborah Griffiths is a bestselling author, speaker, and founder of Broken to Boldness — a transformative space empowering women to navigate life's transitions and rewrite their stories. After overcoming the pain and isolation of an abusive marriage, Deborah discovered the healing power of storytelling.

Her works, including Torched – Burnt By a Gaslighter, inspire resilience and boldness. Through her coaching programs and online community, Deborah helps women turn pain into power and embrace the futures they deserve.

  Live Your Legacy:    A Miss-U-Gram® Production

Global Audience · Live Tuesdays & Thursdays

About the Show:

Live Your Legacy is a conversational podcast that explores how life's defining moments shape the legacy we leave behind. Hosted by Patricia D. Freudenberg, AKA Patty from New York, the show features thoughtful conversations with entrepreneurs, authors, leaders, and creators who have turned adversity, reinvention, or unexpected life transitions into purpose-driven work.

Through these conversations, the show examines an often overlooked truth: the grief that transforms us is not always the grief of death. Often, it is the grief we experience within life — lost opportunities, failures, detours, and the moments that force us to begin again.

Live Your Legacy is not just about success stories. It is about meaning, impact, and the courage to shape a life that leaves something valuable behind.

DragonFly Podcast Academy

Want to start a podcast and learn how to grow it with purpose? DragonFly Podcast Academy is a space for creators who want support, strategy, community, and monetization opportunities. Join through my affiliate link and take the next step toward building your own show.

Join the Academy

* Affiliate link — I may receive credit if you join through it, at no additional cost to you.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:03

Welcome to Live Your Legacy. Where every story holds a turning point. And every turning point holds the power of legacy.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Welcome to Live Your Legacy, a Mystery Graham production, and we explore how life's defining moments shape the legacy we leave behind. I'm your host, Patty from New York, and this show is rooted in a simple truth. Grief is not always about death. Sometimes it comes through life's changes, losses, detours, and new beginnings. Here we speak with entrepreneurs, authors, leaders, and creators who have turned their life's defining moments into meaningful work and lasting contributions. Legacy is not only what we leave behind, it's what we are shaping right now through vision, impact, and purpose. And today I'm honored to welcome Deborah Griffiths, a best-selling author, speaker, and founder of Broken to Boldness, a transformative space empowering women to navigate life's transitions and rewrite their stories after overcoming the pain of isolation and abusive marriage. Deborah discovered the healing power of storytelling. Welcome to Live Your Legacy, Deborah, where your work is including Torch Burnt by Gaslighters, inspires resilience and boldness. And through your coaching programs, online communities, Deborah's turns women's pain into power and embracing what they deserve. Deborah, thank you for being here. And for those who of the that may not know you very well, please tell us a little bit more about your work and let's get into the work that you do. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_03 1:51

Thank you, Patty, for that beautiful introduction and for having me on the show. As you said, I've written a story, my story. It's one of surviving narcissism and gaslighting. And I'm also a mother of three beautiful children. I'm a grandmother of one adorable little grand grandson and a dog mom and just various hobbies from crocheting, needlework, reading, all of that good stuff. And I my my most thing I'm proud of is the coaching, is turning my pain into purpose through podcasting, through writing my story, and coaching.

SPEAKER_00 2:39

That's beautiful. And I am so glad we crossed paths. What was the pivotal moment that changed the direction of your life? I know you mentioned it briefly, but let's talk a little bit more about that pivotal moment that changed the direction of everything you're doing. What I call the turnaround moment.

SPEAKER_03 2:57

My turnaround moment was when I woke up in the psych ward realizing I had attempted suicide. And I had I was still married. And I started going to therapy and became depressed. And the doctor did prescribe some antidepressants, but I but my depression was spiraling faster than the medicine could take in. And the pressure that I was feeling was just too much. And I thought that everybody would be happier without me if I wasn't in this world, including my three kids.

SPEAKER_00 4:00

Right. But going back, was there a revelation there? What lesson was learned?

SPEAKER_03 4:06

A lot. It started when my doctor had come in to the to visit me in the psych ward, and he said, and that's all he said is your environment is making you sick. And that's pretty powerful. But I understood what he meant because I had was in therapy enough long enough to know that there was something wrong with this marriage. And I had already reached out to my mom at that just prior to that and telling her that I'm not happy. Now, granted, this was the days when it was cheaper to call like after 7 p.m. Ma Bell had those telephone race at that time. And I was pretty isolated. That was part of the problem that I didn't realize that of the isolation. Uh he I we were 3,000 miles away from my family, was only really allowed to call them maybe once a week after in the evenings when it was cheaper. But I just I one day I was just so upset. And I reached out during the day, during the high cost of calls, and called my mom. And I told her, I said, I I'm not happy and I don't know why. And her response was, I have been praying for years for this phone call.

unknown 5:32

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_03 5:33

And I went, What?

unknown 5:35

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 5:36

And that's when she started in saying something about that my ex was controlling. Now that generation, that's what they thought in terms of they looked at it as control, not as verbal abuse, not as anything else. In fact, it my whole situation was coined verbal abuse, not narcissism, not gaslighting, not any of those things. These terms have come more into play later, later on, more in the 90s and 2000s and stuff. This was happening, this was happening in the 90s, but again, some of this terminology didn't come into play. The word gaslighting is what the most famous looked up word in Webster's or Merriam Webster's dictionary for the last few years. So wow that goes. Actually, when I was writing my book, I started doing it. I wrote my story. It took me 25 years to open up. And a lot of reasons for that. I was busy rebuilding my life. I was busy rebuilding me. My self-esteem was just in the tank. I had two of my three kids dealing with also parental alienation. I was trying to get my kids, the ones that I was raising anyway, to be healthy, getting, we had family therapy, dealing with a lot of dealing with life. I was able to put myself back through college and earn a degree, but basically building my life. I was a stay-at-home mom, had no, was thrown into the workplace with very little skills. So I had to learn all of that. So life for 25 years was just busy surviving, I guess I would best say. And then I happened to have lunch with a friend, and he told me about a book he was releasing that he had written, he was releasing. He starts telling me a little bit about his story, and I'm thinking, I've experienced some of that same stuff. And I thought to myself, I wonder. I go home, and you know how things start sitting on your chest, and it just keeps sitting on there, and it's like, hmm, I wonder if this is telling me something. And nowhere has it ever been on my bucket list to write a book. Because I had a uh one day you picked up a pen. Yeah, I reached out back to my friend and I said, Who published your book? And so he gave me the publisher's name. It's Dom Damaski with Motivation Champs. Yes, we know him well. We do, and shout out, shout out to Dom. And he I talked to him and he said, You know what? Write a couple chapters, send it to me, and and let me see. So I did, and he called me within 24 hours and he said, Write your story. And I said, say what? Write your story. Okay. So it here's the ironic thing of it. It took me about five and a half weeks to write the book. Now, most people, it takes a lot longer to write their story. Yeah, it just came out of me. Wow, the dam was up, the damn broke, and boom, it all came out. And writing it was like the last piece. It was very healing, very cathartic. I was able to sit back when I typed the words the end at the at the end of the story, and I sat back and wow, look how far I've come. And a lot of what had happened was no longer triggering me, which is a good thing.

SPEAKER_00 9:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:31

But I just realized how much life was in those 25 years, what I've overcome, and how much better I am for having made those very difficult choices.

SPEAKER_00 9:44

And the narrative change, right? Like now, and the strength that you didn't know you had all along. So, what would you say to your younger self today? Listen to your gut.

SPEAKER_02 10:02

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 10:03

And I'm going to elaborate a little bit on that. The day I got married, I'm in the church on my dad's arm, and my stomach did a 180 flip. And because here's just entered the church, you have all these pairs of eyes looking at you, right? And my stomach did this huge flip. And it was so much so that I grabbed on grabbed harder onto my dad's arm. And he looked at me and he said, You don't have to go through with this. Wow. And I'm like, What? And I'm seeing all of these people looking at me. And I went, No, I think it's just wedding day jitters.

SPEAKER_00 10:50

Wow. Wow. So between him and your mom, they're like bookends.

SPEAKER_03 10:56

Yes, my mom was on the other side, but I don't think she realized what was going on as much as my dad was more in tune to, I think, because I grabbed on to him. Because obviously the male, he was stronger. My mom was a little five foot two, one hundred and twenty pounds woman. So I don't think she could have handled me, you know, grabbing onto her, but but my dad, yes, he was 6'4 and 180.

SPEAKER_00 11:19

Wow. Look, that's something you don't forget, right? That would look, we're talking about it now. Something you did not forget. So obviously, there was something there. So, what wisdom would you want your future self to hold on to? Pretty much the same thing.

SPEAKER_03 11:34

Start lit, make sure you're listening to yourself. Your body will tell you before your mind does. But all too often we're good at rationalizing things away. But listen to your intuition, it is it doesn't lie there for a reason. We're given that it doesn't lie, and it's coming more in tune of listening to that intuition. Get in tune with yourself.

SPEAKER_00 12:03

That's a big deal, though. They talk a lot about that. They the experts, the doctors, the the marvels talk about that gut, that gut brain, right? And I think that's what you're referring to. It's that that inner knower, not the logical knower, the inner knower that instinct like animals have. We're wired up that way, but for some reason we talk ourselves out of it a lot of times. So that's a great message. Who has been, and this is going to be a hard one, and you could elaborate, it could be more than one, but who has been one of the most memorable mentors in your life and why?

SPEAKER_03 12:41

That's a great question. And you're right, it is a hard one because I think it it depends on where I was in in my life and what I was doing. Growing up, I had a couple of teachers that were instrumental that that saw my purpose, saw my potential, and encouraged that. I think I'm gonna give a shout-out to my high school English teacher in junior high who said that I couldn't write, and that was the impetus for turning it around that I probably would never get an A out of the class or nothing more than the C. And I ended up with a best-selling book. Yeah, and then many years later, a best-selling book. But is this strange? I wouldn't, she's not a mentor, but how people can challenge you and push you in a way that you didn't to bring out your best. The silver lighting. Yes, career-wise, I had a couple of great bosses, one in particular, his name was John Handel. Just an overall great guy, great person, great to work for. Again, some so many people. I think right now, my mentors, I would say, would be Dominic and Julie Logan.

SPEAKER_00 14:05

Oh, they're awesome.

SPEAKER_03 14:06

That I'm doing right now with the coaching and writing, and even JC Dornick, the dragon, with the podcasting and stuff that I started. Those all have they're all good people, have mentored, I've looked up to them. There's so many more, many people I come into contact with. I truly believe people come into our lives for a reason. Some stay longer than others for various reasons, but they're here to help us, support us, guide us, maybe even for us to help them as well. Because I think giving back is so important and is part of our purpose as well, is giving back what we've been shown and what we've been blessed with to bless others.

SPEAKER_00 14:56

Well, that reminds me of a slogan a lot of philanthropy has a lot of organizations, service above self, right? Service above self. And I'll do a shout out to Rotary because I'm a Rotarian, and that's one of our slogans, and that's what it reminds me of. And if it wasn't for Dr. JC Dornick, also known as the Dragon from Making Sense podcast, and Julie Logan, who is a co-founder for CreativeCon, we wouldn't be having this conversation right now.

SPEAKER_03 15:22

I totally agree.

SPEAKER_00 15:24

Our paths may never have crossed for many reasons, not only your personal story, but even our relationship, right? So we crossed paths because of their wonderful work, but it's going above and beyond. So that's beautiful. I just want to give a little shout out to love. We got Nancy E Shapiro coming in. I know Nancy, she's a great friend. Thank you for tuning in. We got some love on LinkedIn, and we also have Holly, who you mentioned. Could tell us a little bit about Holly. I don't want to, I don't want to take it away. Go ahead. Tell us a little bit about Holly. We'll do a little sidebar here.

SPEAKER_03 15:57

I will today. Holly was instrumental in editing my story. So shout out to Holly. She's she actually perfected the words. Here's any for anybody that wants to write a book, write it. That's why there's editors, that's why there's people like Holly. They will take it and make it better. Not change your words, not do anything to take away from the story. They will enhance it. So if anybody has any doubts about their story and they're afraid to write because of how it's gonna look or gonna sound, there's edit, remember there's editors. So shout out. Thank you, Holly, for reading my story.

SPEAKER_00 16:45

I love that you said enhanced it because every expert has an eye for something, right? And editors have an eye for that. So I love that you mentioned that because it's enhancing, they're not changing their story, they're not writing your story, they're enhancing your story so people benefit the most, not only you, but again, service above self. So, what does legacy mean to you personally? And again, it's a big question, and we could talk three hours about that one, but overall, what comes to mind?

SPEAKER_03 17:18

That's such a powerful, important word. I love the word, and I think it's about how you're living your life. And for me, I try to make each day the best that I possibly can, whether it's to help somebody, sometimes helping myself get over, challenge myself to get over a certain hump. But it's all about how we live our lives. I dabble in genealogy, so I've been fascinated going and researching my family history and actually visiting some of their graves in Kansas and other places. And these are the graves of two and three times great-grandparents that gave up everything to come to America to start a life. And my hat's off to them because it's like, would I be courageous enough to do that? And yet, what I find in the cemeteries is so interesting. When you look on the tombstones, you've got the birth and then the death date, but in between you've got this dash. And the legacy is what are you doing with that dash from the day you're born to the day you die? You've got all that time. Maybe it's only a year, maybe it's a hundred years. But what are you doing with that time to better yourself, better your family, and leave the world in a better place?

SPEAKER_00 18:55

Beautifully said, beautifully said. Listen, I have a soft spot for that too, of that word, as we know here we are on Livia Legacy, but that was beautifully said, and thank you for expanding on that because I resonate with that, and I think a lot of us do, if not everybody. And again, living a life to be remembered, it's really special. So thank you for that, share. What do you hope people remember you most about the way you lived, worked, or served?

SPEAKER_03 19:35

That I did my best that I was a loving mother to my kids, and that I tried my best to help others be their best versions of themselves.

SPEAKER_00 19:52

Oh, that's beautiful.

SPEAKER_03 19:57

My kids are far from it, so I'm I may have married, chosen the wrong person, but I don't regret it in that I had three beautiful children.

SPEAKER_00 20:09

Oh, you are you reading my mind? Because I was just gonna ask you if you could do it all over again, would you change anything, or did every part of your journey have a purpose? You're a mind reader now. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_03 20:21

No, I truly believe that every step that have that I've lived along to today has brought me to right here and now has helped me grow, has helped me better understand. If we don't learn from our mistakes, if we all make mistakes, but if we fall down and we don't get back up, then we failed. It's okay to make mistakes, it's okay to get back up and to try again. And you and yes, sometimes we have to tweak something here or tweak something there, but life is about learning, and then I also think it's also about giving away some of our hopefully or some of the wisdom so that maybe somebody else might listen and think twice. Maybe they get they're getting a red flag from a relationship and thinking, I wonder. And if they take that pause and do that research and say, maybe I may have just saved a life, I may have just saved some heartache.

SPEAKER_00 21:32

100%. And I'm glad you said that because if you didn't say that, I and I'm gonna still say this somebody right now needed to hear that. Somebody right now needed to hear that. And if they're not hearing it right now, somebody needs to hear that. I I'm certain of it because that's a strong message. We got some more love here. We got a Holly Totten again, publisher, no editor, excuse me, uh Debbie. Your story is amazing. Loved working with you on it. Oh, that's so beautiful. And that's so cool. How the editor then really knows your story. Really, yeah. That's really cool. Then you like bond in relationships. So that's really beautiful. I know Don Denaski was your publisher. Tiffany Jones. Hey Tiffany Jones. I love this. Would love to be a guest on the show. Absolutely. You got some turnaround story. So come on in. Thank you so much. So this is my favorite question. I saved to the end. Okay. And what is something about your journey that most people would be surprised to learn? Okay. And it could be anything. It doesn't have to be your work journey, just your life. Tell us a little bit more about Deborah.

SPEAKER_03 22:50

I struggle like everybody else, probably. I struggle. I can struggle with my moods. I can struggle with maybe finances. I struggle with the day-to-day life and I may appear to have it all, to look to like it, I've got it all. And in many ways, I'm very blessed. And don't get me wrong, but I do I do struggle like everybody else. And it's okay. Because it's in those struggles that we learn and grow.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

I agree. I love everything you shared. I totally agree. And before we move on to your wonderful website, I want to say that that transparency is so important again for people to hear because they see best-selling author, oh, podcaster. Oh, I am I got out of a terrible relationship. I'm a strong woman. But you're human, you believe, you feel. Sometimes we look at social and we scroll and it looks like everybody has it together. No, it's not always that way. Yeah, we're we have gratitude, and I think gratitude is a superpower, right? So thank you for being grateful because you recognize you are blessed, Deborah Griffith. So thank you for again putting a little cherry on top with that one. Let's go over to your website. I'm really, really excited. Let me find it here. We got here it is broken to boldness. Let's show the screen. Let's add it, let's add it here to the show and uh let's scroll up a little bit. I'm just gonna scroll up for a little bit. Let me go. I was I was taking a little view on it. I was going to a few of your pages too. I'm not gonna go off the page today, I'm just gonna scroll down. But this is beautiful, and before I hand it to you, you might want to highlight something, but I did what I saw over. You got some great reviews. Oh my I might have been on another page, so I'm gonna go ahead and grab it and put it here so people could see what I'm talking about. But tell us a little bit about your website. Where should people go to on your website? What's your favorite page? Tell us a little bit more about it, and where can we find you?

SPEAKER_03 25:23

My I think they're all my favorite pages, but my website is www.broken to boldness.com. And I chose that name because at one time I was broken, and now I'm trying to live my life more boldly, and I'm a firm believer that others can too. So I offer coaching packages, I call it my Living Bold program. You can break through it, own it, lock it in, and do it. So I have different programs there. I also do a lot of writing. I have a blog page on there where basically every week I write an article, anything pertaining to self-esteem, self-worth, resilience, even some tips on narcissism, gaslighting, domestic abuse. I have resources. If you think you might be in an abusive situation, there's resources on my page as well. And then my blogs, as they're released, the episodes are released. I have a podcast page and they're put on there. And again, it's mostly about women who have gone through divorce or some type of trauma, how they've turned their pain into purpose. And I've also had some experts on, like divorce mediators and what and financial experts to help women who may be considering either going through a divorce or leaving one of these toxic relationships, some things that they should be cognizant of and how to better prepare themselves for when they do leave. Leaving is hard, and there's no ifs, ands, or buts about that. For in abusive situations, it is estimated that it takes a woman seven times on average before they actually leave. And here you are, and here I am.

SPEAKER_00 28:02

So if you can do it, anybody could do it.

SPEAKER_03 28:06

Yes. And there's a lot more help out there today than there was 30 years ago.

SPEAKER_00 28:12

So that's that's amazing. It's a really amazing story. Definitely check it out. I want to read the reviews, I don't want it to go unseen. Real stories, real results. Debbie, my life is so good, my dreams are coming true. I cannot tell you how thankful I am for your guidance and support. I went from so much abuse to self-doubt, single parenthood with a special needs boy that was so misunderstood. Fast forward to such a good life, I can never thank you enough. These are just some of our views. We got some quotes here by Brene Brown. Truth and courage aren't always comfortable, but they're never weakness. And we got another beautiful quote from by Ayn Rand. The question isn't who's going to let me, it's who's going to stop me. And uh I really appreciate you coming on as a guest. Uh, love everything you do. Let's bring you back up here. Let's promote your here. We go broken to bolness.com. Check it out. Uh follow her on all the socials. They're all there. The resources are there. And again, if you need help, Deborah is who you go to. Deborah, I'm going to pass it to you for some closing remarks before we get on out of here. And again, thank you for being a guest on Live Your Legacy today.

SPEAKER_03 29:28

Thank you, Patty, for this opportunity. It's been a great discussion. And my closing remarks is really to anybody who's listening out there that maybe experiencing some type of abuse or is going through a divorce, it is better on the other side. And there's help out there, there's resources out there. Reach out.

SPEAKER_00 29:55

Beautiful, beautiful. And again, I will be putting this replay on. There's 14 platforms. So check us out on Live Your Legacy. And there, here it goes. Let me just put it over here. Livelegacy.vip is the website for the show. And you could follow us. If you want to be a guest, there's a link there too, my friends. There's a link there too. So go ahead, be my guest. If you want to learn more about how to podcast, because you have a story that you think you could change the world or help the world, then go ahead and uh become a dragonfly podcast academy member. And the link is there, it's my affiliate link. So hey, you're helping Patty too. And you'll see Deborah there. That's how we became friends. And uh with that being said, we're gonna get on out of here. Have an amazing day, everybody, and God bless. Until next time, we oh, the show will be put on Thursdays. Thursdays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays is when we drop, depending on when we have a show. So Thursday will be your show, Deborah, and uh be on the lookout. I love you so much, everybody, and God bless. And that's it for today to wrap.

SPEAKER_02 31:09

And every turning point holds the power of legacy. Every step, every star, every star, we live down.