Coping with Ghosting

Betrayal and Burnout: Managing Life When It’s "Too Much," with Dr. Ken Huey

• Gretta Perlmutter, Certified Post Betrayal Transformation® Coach • Season 1 • Episode 94

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If your nervous system has been on high alert lately, you aren’t alone. Maybe you’re dealing with a painful betrayal or the silence of being ghosted, and facing a job issue, a personal loss, or health stress.

In this episode, Dr. Ken Huey from The Voice of Hope Podcast shares how to navigate compounded stress and find your way back from overwhelm when everything feels like "too much."

In this episode, we discuss:

  • The Breath as an Anchor: Using your breath as the primary entry point to the present moment.
  • Success vs. Distraction: Why achieving one "meaningful win" is more effective for stress relief than common distractions.
  • Tools for a Reality Check: Using journaling and a "circle of trust" to reset your perspective after extremely stressful situations.
  • Curating Your Influence: The importance of intentionally choosing the five people or sources that shape your mindset.
  • From Betrayal to Boundaries: Shedding a victim mindset, taking your power back, and creating high standards and non-negotiable boundaries.

Whether you are reeling from a recent relationship ending or feeling the heavy weight of multiple issues, this conversation will give you free, easy-to-implement tools to help. It will give you hope.

Dr. Ken Huey is CEO at The Hope Group and Havenwood Academy in Utah, and Host of The Voice of Hope Podcast. Dr. Huey has over 25 years of experience in the mental health and behavioral healthcare fields and holds a Ph.D. in Marriage and Family Therapy and a Master’s degree in Counseling Psychology.

Connect With Dr. Ken Huey: 

Listen to The Voice of Hope Podcast and check out his LinkedIn


Connect with Gretta:

Free Guide: What to Say To A Ghost
Free and Private Facebook Support Group |  Instagram | copingwithghosting.com

Music: "Ghosted" by Gustavo Zaiah

Disclaimer:  This information is designed to mentor and guide you to cope with Ghosting by cultivating a positive mindset and implementing self-care practices. It is for educational purposes only; it solely provides self-help tools for your use. Coping With Ghosting is not providing health care or psychological therapy services and is not diagnosing or treating any physical or mental ailment of the mind or body. The content is not a substitute for therapy or any advice given by a licensed psychologist or other licensed or other registered professionals. 


Support the show

Note to All Listeners: Ghosting is defined as: The practice of ending a personal relationship with someone by suddenly and without explanation withdrawing from all communication (Oxford Languages). When you leave an abusive situation without saying "goodbye," it's not ghosting, it's "self-protection." When you quietly exit a relationship after a boundary has been violated, it's not ghosting, it's "self-respect."

Gretta:

Welcome to Coping with Ghosting, the podcast that provides hope, healing, and understanding for anyone who's been ghosted, betrayed, or hurt in relationships. I'm your host, Gretta. I am a certified post-betrayal transformation coach, and today's topic is all about practical ways to manage overwhelm. If you're feeling like you're barely holding it together or life feels unbearable, this is for you. Here to discuss healing strategies is my guest, Dr. Ken Huey, CEO at the Hope Group and Havenwood Academy in Utah, and host of the Voice of Hope podcast. Dr. Huey has over 25 years of experience in the mental health and behavioral health care field and holds a PhD in marriage and family therapy, as well as a master's degree in counseling psychology. Thank you so much for being here today, Dr. Huey.

Dr. Ken Huey:

Y es, Gretta. It's so good to be with you. Thanks.

Gretta:

I've noticed a trend, and that is when it rains, it pours. Many of my coaching clients have been ghosted, they've been betrayed, and they simultaneously find themselves in these really uncomfortable situations where maybe a parent has passed, or they get a challenging diagnosis, or they're struggling with a job search, you name it. So today I really want to focus on what to do when everything just feels out of control and upside down. So my first question for you is when life feels like it's spiraling, what are your three top strategies to ground down and find calm in the moment?

Dr. Ken Huey:

You bet. So I think to just find a little bit of space, the first thing that I really like, I've learned from Eckhart Tole and his book, The Power of Now, and then watching podcasts with him and Oprah. I think I stumbled on him maybe a decade ago, and just really find the way that he considers breath work very accessible. It's just so easy. You know, I've done the square breathing and many other different kinds of things, relaxation exercises, they can sometimes, I think, get a little bit complicated. I really like the way that he's trying to help us get into now. Because really, anxiety lives in the future. It's our consideration of, oh, what's going to happen with this? And will this be a big problem for me? And so when we're in that future mindset, just constantly, anxiety thrives. And regret lives in the past. That's also just a really negative feeling. But in the now, the the just fullness of whatever it is right now, how I feel, the beauty of the day, there's an opportunity for real happiness. And so, you know, the way you can go find a podcast and listen to him, and I think I probably recommend that. Uh, but really, he just has you focusing on your breath. I like to start breathing a little bit more deeply and hearing the my my nose as I'm as I'm breathing through my nose, feeling the air filling up my lungs, and just really paying attention to that and try to empty my brain. And I have found I I wind up using this to go to sleep, and with almost 100% success, I can fall asleep in two to three minutes if I'm at all tired and I'm starting to have my mind spin and I'm like, oh, this isn't working. Start listening to my breathing and it and really paying attention to that. And I get into this kind of sense of now. A little bit of practice, and that seems to work every time. So that's kind of my go-to for sort of the intensity of the moment. Uh you know, really overcoming the overwhelm. The research is pretty compelling that distraction doesn't actually do it. People will want to go watch TV or numb, certainly alcohol, or just distraction. I remember early in my career, I was building a business in Missouri, and I tried to get my co-founder, who was just stressed out of his mind, it was a hard time, to maybe go on a vacation with his wife, and he was like, What are you talking about? That will not do anything for me. He taught me a really valuable lesson back kind of firsthand with me and said, I need a success. I need to have something go right. I need to go make the right things happen, and then I'll feel calmed down. And if I get enough of the things under control, then I can go take a vacation, and that would be just fine. So my my second thing I'd say is have a success. Even a single success, which can be, you know, what's a uh I call them rocks, boulders, the the things that we really need to get done that you don't want to do. They're not the fun thing necessarily, but you go get one of those done, and it's stunning what it does to kind of lift mood. And the research is compelling that success is the thing that makes us feel better in the middle of stress. So have a success. Find one to jump into. The third thing I would say is, for heaven's sake, don't practice failure. This is a really common thing, uh, myself included. I I can very easily start to practice failure by avoiding the thing that will bring that success to me, uh, or just procrastinating the heavy stuff or whatever. Uh I wind up building muscle, you know, neural pathways that take me down a path of kind of consistently practicing that failure that keeps the oxygen that keeps overwhelm alive.

Gretta:

Can you explain what you mean by practicing failure, like a concrete example of it?

Dr. Ken Huey:

You bet. So, you know, I I have a number of tasks during the day. There's some specific things that I have on a scorecard, for instance. They're weighty and they they take real time. And uh I can go get good things, but not the best things done, and avoid doing the best thing. And I can get into a habit of doing okay things that don't really drive the success of the company I'm a part of. That's practicing failure on kind of a high level. But you can practice failure in even the small ways, and that is get up and go get food instead of jumping into a success, getting something done, uh uh, go clean the house, go do something else to do that avoidance thing and make that your neural pathway, and you've got a problem. So I love the concept of neural pathways, the way that they kind of inform trauma and the way that they inform good and bad habits. You know, you've basically you're pairing two neurons that get together and you don't have to think about it, you just go towards the thing. So I feel stress and I go eat a cookie, and I do enough of that enough times. As soon as I feel stress, I just go straight to the cookie. That's what practicing failure gets me. So for heaven's sakes, don't do that. Get I'm feeling stress and I go find a success. So that every time I start feeling stressed, I start going into problem-solving mode. That's a functional neural pathway. And that connected set of neurons will take me somewhere beneficial.

Gretta:

That to me is a hard habit to break because I love to eat sweets when I feel stressed. And I try to find healthier snacks, I guess, is what my solution is for that. But I love this idea of jumping into a success when I feel stressed. So, what's an example of a success somebody could dive into instead of just going and eating the stress away? What could they do? Like, especially if you don't feel motivated to do anything because you're so stressed out.

Dr. Ken Huey:

Yeah. This is where it's really a tough thing, you know, because you don't feel the motivation to do it. Well, how do I go to the thing that I really need to do, but I don't actually feel like I want to do it? Boy, that's that is life. Now, I am not claiming to be 100% successful at this, but I have gotten better and better at it because it is a muscle memory practiced behavior. And the more that I do it, the better I get at it. So, real quick example. I am pretty focused on keeping my blood sugar down, working on my cholesterol, and these are things that I've had problems with. I've had, you know, a little bit of a weight issue. It wasn't too bad, but that would fall if I got those other things of control and my, you know, cholesterol and blood pressure. I wanted both of those to be okay. I focused pretty hard on that. And one of the things that I need to do is not eat the junk and to have kind of a daily exercise of some sort. I do cardio, I ultimately cardio usually on one day and uh lifting weights on the other. I really like cardio. I'll I'll pair it with sports. I love competition, and so go play racquetball or go play pickleball. That's fun. Well, I hate hate with a capital H. I hate lifting weights. But I need a little bit more muscle mass as I age, and I I need that rhythm in order to avoid the junk food. If I'm paying that price, it makes it easier to not go towards the junk. I'm currently doing, I probably it this has taken a while, but I probably eat about 20% of the normal daily amount of sugar, and it's had huge benefits for me. One of the ways that I do that then, at to your question, is I just go lift the weights. I hate it, but I've got a 20-minute workout routine. I have weights set up in my garage. I do eight sets, two sets each of uh four different lifts. And uh the first, I do the ones I hate flies, I hate those. I do those very first, and I finish with the ones I like the most, which is curls, and I finish that and feel like, all right, now we're moving. And it makes it really easy. If I'm gonna pay that painful price, I don't go eat the sugar thing generally. Once in a while, I'll have a chocolate or something like that, but it's not five chocolates and then a candy bar and then a cookie later on in the evening. I'm just not doing that anymore. And that's how you don't practice the failure, practice the thing that takes you where you want to go.

Gretta:

It's interesting that you brought up weights because I started lifting weights last year, and I've had the complete opposite experience of you. I find that they're incredibly addictive, and I love lifting them. And sometimes my arms hurt because they just want to be lifting weights. And I'm all, I don't know, I'll be in the parking lot somewhere and I'll just want to drop down and do a plank just to like put some weight on my arms. Isn't that weird?

Dr. Ken Huey:

That that is super cool. I I find a lot of I find a lot of people like that, and I am so envious. I had hoped I'm into it about a year now. I keep hoping that that's gonna happen. And it's not. I don't like it. I just don't like it. But well into it, and especially as I I find the joy there. So I try and amplify that in my inside myself. For you, congratulations that you like it. That is so what a blessing. And you can just keep on doing that.

Gretta:

It's an addiction now, so I have to be careful about it.

Dr. Ken Huey:

Yeah. But use that to replace, you know, the thing that is a failure for you, too much for the sweets, and just go do a little bit of extra lifting. I I think that's not a bad method. You know, you can anything in in uh uh outside of moderation can become a problem. But I like to replace, I really believe the idea of you can't just take away something and replace it with nothing. That creates a vacuum, and the thing that you like the least will rush back into the vacuum. So I've got to replace sweets with exercise, or I've got to replace it with very healthy living. I do a lot of protein that I eat now, and I just super clean diet. And uh I'm five pounds, I'm actually my lowest body weight since 1990, and I I could move better, I go upstairs better, I play racquetball better, and it just that is kind of a self-confirming uh language that is is happening for me that's just terrific. I love it.

Gretta:

Well, I'm glad that you found something that works for you and that you've embraced this healthy lifestyle. That's awesome. So I want to talk about something that I struggled with on and off throughout my life. I battle with catastrophizing, like something's gonna go wrong. And many people fall into what AA calls stinking thinking, which is repeating a story, such as, I was ghosted, so now I'm gonna be single forever. And I'm wondering if you have some advice on how to interrupt negative thought loops and help people reclaim their power.

Dr. Ken Huey:

Yeah, you know, there's kind of two things in that question. It's those the negative thought loops is is kind of one thing I would go at in a particular way. And the uh I don't know how you described it that felt a little bit different, but it it's maybe a deeper, you know, self-shaming and and such that might happen. So in terms of interrupting with thought loops, I I really, again, I like for that. I'm super excited about Eckhart Tolle's work. I just think to be to figure to start practicing getting in the now. And it's really muscle memory. It's just like whatever. I don't mean to talk so much about kind of this health kick that I'm on. So forget that. Anything that you do that you're good at, if you like to play basketball or you like to play pickleball, or it's not sports, you like to draw, or you like to knit, or whatever. Think about when you started that, how difficult it was to get a particular set of knitting right and make it look uniform. And you do it long enough and it gets very, very easy. It's the same way with breathing and paying attention to it and getting into the now. Eckhart totally talks about I was listening to this fascinating interview with uh Oprah with him, and he had at one point, it was he was talking about sounded like 10 or 12 years, that he had gone without getting angry. Like, what? That's just about the muscle memory of learning how to be so in the now that he's really able to let that stuff wash over him. I haven't achieved that, but I do find the ability to get into that power of now to be much easier because of the practice. So I first that that is something that I would do. To the second, kind of more deep negative affirmations that you're talking about. I I'm not one that does very well with journaling, but I've had a lot of success with people that I've worked with when they will journal. It's some people really find a lot of comfort by putting the words on paper and just writing it down and being able to look at it, and that's the way that they process it. I've got a son that does this a lot, has a huge journal that he just recently shared with me. It's beautiful. Uh, just absolute, he calls it word vomit, and yet it is super soothing to him, and he's that's the way that he processes. Fantastic. I think that's really, really a great way to go. I also am a big fan of talking to the people that love you. I mean, who really, I mean, just really knows you and believes in you, in spite of knowing you. So I have two people in my life, especially my dad. He's unfortunately passed away suddenly two years ago. I've got this best friend and co-founder of one of my businesses, his name's Landon. And in a downtime, I'll just, it's not very often that it gets to this point, but I'll just call Landon and say, dude, here's I'm struggling with myself, frustrated by my inability to succeed in this particular area. I don't like that I'm not good at this or whatever. Look, you love me. Why do you believe in me? Basically, he he's he knows what's going on as soon as we have this beginning of this conversation. It's two or three minutes of just feeling his belief in me. All right, now and we're built to be connected. And if we can, you know, have some really trusted people in our life to be able to go to, I find that to be incredibly powerful.

Gretta:

I love that because it's also free. I called my dad the other day because I thought I did the worst thing ever. And he's like, You're worried about that? Are you kidding me? And it just felt so nice to have him be like, Okay, listen, you're not at the edge of a cliff right now. You're totally fine. You're on land, you're fine. Like you're safe and sound. Don't worry. That's not a big deal. And some people who are listening might be like, well, he minimized your problem, but actually he brought me back to reality because I was spiraling and catastrophizing and it was freaking me out. So bringing whatever it is to somebody you love and trust is such a helpful thing to do.

Dr. Ken Huey:

For sure. You're you're making me think of something else too. There's there's been some really cool research on gratitude. And meditation's always been hard for me. I've kind of alluded to that, but the way that it's done with Tole is really good. There's a really good one that I like, really just gratitude meditation. Five minutes, I think I think it was seven minutes, is that what people were doing, just considering how freaking awesome their life is. And you know, if you're sitting in this country, even if you're at the lower end of the socioeconomic scale and you're making call $20,000 a year, but you're and living in an apartment with a bedroom and a bathroom, like you're the top five percent of kind of physical comforts in the world. And when you really start to think about just what a gift this life is of what you've got, and you meditate on that, do that seven minutes a day for two weeks. And if that doesn't change some of the way that you're perceiving things around you, if something's wrong.

Gretta:

Wow. I kind of want to do that challenge. I love that. That sounds so good. I'm I just think it will increase and raise your vibrations, so that's nice.

Dr. Ken Huey:

That's something I was thinking about as I was kind of pondering what we would talk about. We didn't mean to have that come out like that, but the vibrations, I I I had this really fun object lesson. I I actually ordered online a couple of tuning forks here two months ago. And they're both C tuning forks. Somewhere here in my office. And uh I just started really thinking about this and ultimately built out this idea that if you take a tuning fork and you hit it with a mallet, it vibrates at whatever frequency. This these are two C's. But if you get another one and bring it near it, it starts to vibrate. Uh it's a C also, it will vibrate with that same sound. We uh are bringing a vibrational quality, love and connection or hate or anger, whatever it is, and the and the world around us starts to vibrate with that. Now, it it you need to continue to hit the so for me, I think love is the meaning. That's why we are here. We are built to be connected. Love just powers this planet if we'll let it. And so we have to keep hitting the mallet or with the mallet, hitting the tuning fork, which is continuing to find ways to be a being of love that then has others vibrating in that way. So all of the things that I'm talking about, I'm hoping help people vibrate in a way that is kind of aligned with love and connection, and that heals all kinds of things.

Gretta:

For my New Year's resolution last year, well, my word of the year was love. And then I thought, okay, I want to be love, feel love, and express love as much as possible this year. That was my whole resolution.

Dr. Ken Huey:

Beautiful. I love it.

Gretta:

When someone is feeling overwhelmed by multiple challenges simultaneously. Self-compassion can feel almost impossible. So, what is self-compassion actually look like in dark moments, and how can listeners, viewers begin to offer it to themselves?

Dr. Ken Huey:

You bet. This will sound like a harsh message. I hope that it can be heard by those that hear this with uh the way it's intended. But we there that we have a bad habit frequently as a species of getting into a place of victimhood and rehearsing why we've landed where we are and the bad things that somebody's done and why we're not moving forward, and that also has a vibrational energy that keeps us stuck. And if if in the middle of that downtime, you know, you're looking for compassion, but you're in victim land, you're not getting out of that place. And so the first thing I do is is to try to figure out where are you, an actor, a mover and shaker in your life that you can deconstruct the victim message. Like just dump that. So I was playing racquetball. I'm an intense personality, and one of the things that I've worked on is being compassionate and kind on the racquetball court. Don't get into arguments about points and stuff like this. And I felt like I've had some really good success. And last night I was playing, and a very genuine good guy got super frustrated with me and kind of told me off. Not yelling, but we got off the court and he kind of told me that I was being a jerk. And I was just stunned. And I'm positive he misread some of what was going on with me, but I'm also positive that there's something in his message that is helpful for me. And he's he's seeing something. So I can be in the victim place of that's not fair, and he's not understanding, and he doesn't get who I am, and all of those messages, forget those. If I want to not be a victim, let's just own that there's something up here. What is it that I can do different? And I actually came home and talked with my wife and really quickly, oh, and and one of the a good friend on the rackwall court really came really quickly came up with a way to civilly let every point be decided by him and others, just really let that go at a level I hadn't really considered, but I did because I stayed largely out of the victim place, and that gave opportunity for me to own what I'm doing that's letting me be stuck in this moment. So I think self-compassion is not being a victim. Like don't just freaking don't rehearse that stuff for yourself. And and then I would add, I also think to have affirmations. I I like mantras. You call them affirmations or mantras, but I I many years ago was trying to bust out of, I didn't, I didn't want everyone to beg anybody to love me again. I had anxious attachment and I wanted that to go away. And I would I would say it over and over and over again, I'd say it to my wife, to anybody that wanted to hear it, I will never beg anybody to love me again, ever. And it was a big part of getting over that. It took a little while. So, you know, an affirmation or a mantra of I do hard things, um, I have what it takes, I am a connected person, I am a being of light. All of those things help pull that compassion up, I believe, and move us toward a place where we are actors in our play instead of victims in our play.

Gretta:

Do you use these affirmations to interrupt negative thought loops?

Dr. Ken Huey:

Yeah, so I so uh it really what I what I try to encourage people to do, and I try to do myself, is get to where as soon as that impulse even starts, you're saying the thing. You know, if you're wanting that self-compassion, I I like I am a being of light. This was one that I I I had a a sad time for um six months or seven months, and and it I found it terribly productive to just say, I I'm a being of light. I am a kind, good human being. It's okay. And I just got better at recognizing the ways that was true, and uh it the the compassion was you know kind of forthcoming. The universe kind of brings it, God brings it, whatever, however you look at it at that. So what's the thing that's true? It has to be real, it's true about who you are, and it is a mantra as to where you want to go.

Gretta:

That's beautiful. So what would you say to listeners who are feeling really unworthy or completely broken right now?

Dr. Ken Huey:

Yeah. So a hard fact somebody that is feeling completely broken and unworthy is a victim. Full stop. You're in victim land. I'm not trying to shame that person. I'm trying to call it what it is, because if we can't grapple with that being the case, we can't fix it. But if you can recognize that, say I am, I'm I'm in the middle of being a victim. Well, shoot. As soon as you can own that, you can start doing something to get out of it. Now, we've talked about a number of different things, but let me give you one that I like a lot too. You're you are the average of the five people closest to you. Their skills, their mindset, whether they're a victim or not. I would be careful then, if you've got lots of victims around you, you're gonna need to change friends and change your cohort if you want to get out of that kind of thinking. All right. We're also in this most amazing time where your five closest friends can be Layla Hormozy, Oprah Winfrey, Jeff Bezos, and and Tim Ferris. Like amazing thought leaders, brilliant people, compassionate, intelligent folks. They can be you, Greta. I can go listen to your podcasts and surround myself with that. And so I do that. David Goggins is one I've gotten into a bit of a kick on. If you don't like swearing, if that's really hard for you, I wouldn't recommend him. But that guy, if you uh I listen to him for five minutes and I am pumped up. There are it's a no-excuses way of tackling the world. If he's not your cup of tea, fine. Pick those that are and use that to help lift you. And get him on freaking speed dial, if you will, with podcasts that you like. I listened to hours of Eckhart Tolle until I started to get what he was trying to tell me. I got it, and I can do it now. Thank you very much. Eckhart, someday I'd like to give him a big hug for what he has done by putting his intelligence out into the world. We live in an amazing time. Take advantage.

Gretta:

That is so cool. I love this advice. Nobody's ever said this on my show before, and I think that's brilliant. And I do that. I'm typically listening to something inspirational every single day. And it just really helps me remember who I am and uh feel good and just know that it's all gonna work out. And that's just that's just it. I'm not a victim. And to all the listeners, I have to say, you can have the experience of being ghosted. You can have the experience of being betrayed, and you can, for the rest of your life, have your story. This is what happened to me. This was a terrible experience, this was the worst thing, and people will feel sympathy for you and you will get pity and you will have that story, but you have the power to take that story and shift it into a way better one. I'm an example of this because I took what happened to me and I flipped it on its head. I was like, you know what? I can't, I'm not a victim of this anymore. If my life is like this huge, huge timeline, I'm not gonna spend the rest of it looking back on the past and staying stuck there. I am going to take this and I'm going to use it. Okay, I don't like being treated like this anymore. So, what types of boundaries do I want to implement into my life for myself and for other people? What uh are my new standards in life? Because I never want to be treated like this again. So, what are the things I'm gonna be looking for in a relationship moving forward? You know, there's so many ways to take betrayal and use it as a positive springboard to launch you into a whole new era of your life when that feels really good for you. I basically transformed who I was because I was at such a rock bottom from all this BS of people being mean to me that I was just like, I'm I'm done with it. I'm I'm gonna up-level and upgrade my life from here on out.

Dr. Ken Huey:

Freaking beautiful. I could not agree more. You went from a place of victimhood to absolute anchor in your own dang life. You're your own attachment figure. You're doing your own fixing. That's where there's real power then. And you know, newsflash, this is this really irritates a lot of folks, but let me tell you, victims are boring. That's a harsh thing to say. But think about the people in a room that are a victim and want to tell you, you know, their marriage and why it went bad. And they're they they're always telling everybody it it's so boring. It's so I feel for them and I can be attentive and listen, but that that's not it, that there's no power in it. There, there's nothing in that that is redeeming and enjoyable. There's a time and a season for it. We all need to just feel crappy at times. I'm not it's not pulling yourself up by your bootstraps immediately. And sadness is a normal part of the human condition. But when you're ready, let's get out of the victim land.

Gretta:

Thank you. Yeah, stop being a broken record and work on upgrading your mindset. I love this concept of listening to all these people who inspire you every single day. Make those your five people. That's awesome. So good. Okay. Um, I have some more questions here, but I feel like we've almost gone over all of them. Unless there's anything from those other questions that I had asked that you want to tap into or touch on.

Dr. Ken Huey:

There's one thing that's I think aligned uh adjacent to what we've talked about. So I'll say this. You know, I I've I've heard my kids when they were younger uh pray to not have problems. You know, let us get where we're going safely. Let us uh, you know, have life be great, basically. And I think a lot of us, you know, pray for a lack of conflict. I think that's a that's a mistake. I uh no matter what God you pray to, i suffering is part of the human condition. Don't pray that you won't have problems. Pray that you will have strength and capabilities equal to what is thrown at you and that you will thrive in the middle of hard times. That is a cool prayer.

Gretta:

I'm glad you mentioned that. Very insightful. Your podcast is called The Voice of Hope. So, of course, I have to ask, what gives you hope that people can come out stronger on the other side of the season of life?

Dr. Ken Huey:

You know, I have a family member close to me. She has schizophrenia, she's schizoaffective, she's brilliant. She uh she was valedictorian in college, concert pianist, uh, just amazing, and has this mental illness. And it has kind of cratered a lot of her life. And she would admit this too. Uh, she ultimately, after I think it was 20 years of marriage, you know, got divorced. Uh she has struggled to make ends meet. Uh, it's been a tough time. And she was in a place of victimhood, in a place of sadness, uh, the world's not treating me right for a long time. And I have watched her work her way through that, find medications that help her where she is. She does gratitude uh meditation, uh, she she enjoys her life. She has built muscle where weakness existed. That gives me hope. If somebody that can be amazing in this incredible place and kind of really fall and have just a rough time and come out with the beauty, if I could show you this woman, she is so phenomenal. There is no way you can tell me that we can build muscle, get out of victim land, do things that actually bless the world and make the world a better place. That gives me hope.

Gretta:

That's such valuable information. Thank you. Is there anything else you'd like listeners to know about betrayal, ghosting, or major life overwhelm?

Dr. Ken Huey:

I think we've covered it. Those are these are fun topics. What an engaging conversation. And Greta, you said it right. But you have taken what could be just debilitating and you quit to I'm gonna go figure out how to overcome this thing and share it with others along the way. That is really a phenomenal gift you've given to humanity. Thank you.

Gretta:

Thank you. And thank you so much for sharing so much wisdom today and giving us free practical tools for managing overwhelm.

Dr. Ken Huey:

Fantastic. Thank you, Dreta.

Gretta:

So, listeners, I really appreciate you watching this on YouTube, subscribing, leaving comments, reviews, ratings, following me on social media at coping with ghosting. And if you haven't already, of course, join my free and private coping with ghosting Facebook support group. It's so wonderful. We're growing rapidly. And finally, remember, no matter what you're facing, you're not alone and you're worthy of care and connection. You deserve the best.