Malisa Hepner Found Her Healing – And Kept Her Fire

Malisa Hepner Interview

Welcome to Hard Beautiful Journey where we embrace vulnerability as our superpower and let courage light our path. I’m Tiff Carson here to share heartfelt stories of healing, grief, and resilience. Each week I’ll talk with guests from experts to everyday heroes about their journeys through adversity.

Together we’ll uncover the beauty that emerges from life’s challenges and how each experience can spark profound growth. Join us on this courageous journey of connection and transformation.

Tiff Carson: Have you ever felt like you’ve reached the end of your rope? Not just exhausted, but truly broken, like no one could possibly understand how much you’ve been carrying if you’ve ever whispered to yourself. I don’t know how much longer I can keep going This episode is for you. Today [00:01:00] I’m speaking with Malisa Hepner, a therapist, speaker, and host of the Emotionally Unavailable Podcast life reads like a trauma survivor’s handbook, addiction loss, parental death. Childhood abuse and C-P-T-S-D, but this is not just a story of darkness, it’s a story of fierce, embodied light. Malisa is living proof that even the most shattered hearts can heal. And that healing doesn’t mean becoming someone new. It means remembering who you were before the world told you to shrink. So, let me ask you this before we dive in. What stories have you been carrying that aren’t yours to hold anymore?

Welcome to the show, Malisa. Hi!

Malisa Hepner: What a beautiful introduction. Thank you.

Tiff Carson: Thank you so much for being here. You have been through some unimaginable loss in your life, and you’ve also made a life changing decision to start over at a point when many people just would have given up. Can you take us back to that turning point? What was happening in your life and what made you decide to choose yourself?

Malisa Hepner: Ooh, that’s a good question. And what’s funny is being on the other side of it, like a year and a half later, my answer is so different because I felt really victimized by everything and everyone in my life at that time, like I would’ve blamed a toxic workplace. I would’ve blamed my friends for not showing up for, like I was in a really deep, dark hole, but really believed everything was happening to me.

Tiff Carson: Mm-hmm.

Malisa Hepner: So I was in a job that was just not a good fit for me, honestly. And I did it for far longer than I should have. But ultimately, really I didn’t understand anything I was experiencing. I knew at that point, I had understood trauma. I knew I had a lot of it. I knew I had C-P-T-S-D, I understood triggers. I didn’t understand exactly what was being triggered. I also didn’t understand my wounding in any way, shape or form. So something that I say a lot now is I understand that I have these huge betrayal and neglect wounds, and everything was a betrayal because nobody could meet my expectations. Because of course, my expectations really were, please come fill all these holes that I have left over from childhood.

That is truly what I expected from people. And even just in this last couple of weeks, I’ve learned this new lesson, or at least gotten a deeper understanding of this where, like everyone else, I have this negativity bias about sharing my stuff with people. I can be on my podcast or your podcast and tell you anything you wanna know, but in real time when I’m struggling, I am still struggling to go to somebody to open up about it.

I know I have to, so I do it but I’ve had to do it more recently because I’ve had a little more stuff going on and my. Response to other people’s response to me has been hilarious to me because I felt the pattern restarting where I’m like, this is exactly why I don’t tell anyone, blah, blah, blah.

And then I was like, oh honey, you’re the problem. You’re the problem here. And so I was so grateful to hear it in my head, the this is why because that was like my famous stuff, you know?

Tiff Carson: Mm-hmm.

Malisa Hepner: To go back to the original question. I was in a very dark place. I was covered in shame from being the most reactive person I have ever known.

I’ve never known somebody as reactive as I am. I’m not saying there’s not more reactive. They’re not in my world. But I woke up triggered. I went to sleep, triggered. I was relying on that finite amount of self-control, discipline, and motivation to get me through without screaming at someone.

Malisa Hepner: But I didn’t understand that I was in survival mode all day, every day, every minute of my being awake was in survival mode and I didn’t know that it was still happening. I thought sometimes I was, or, you know, I had a general understanding of it and I was considered trauma informed. I mean, I really was. I could see it in others, but this had been my natural state my entire life.

Malisa Hepner: And when I started to discover nervous system regulation, it made so much sense to me. But I couldn’t regulate because I didn’t understand the root of what was going on.

Malisa Hepner: I found myself to be in the very darkest place was I had a narrative like, I’m mean, I’m just mean to everybody, and also, I felt like I was literally the world’s worst mother. And it just got to a place where I was like, yeah, I think they’re better off without me, because I sometimes yell.

Malisa Hepner: I’m so sad for the version of me that literally almost ended her life because she wasn’t perfect. And that’s all it boiled down to is that I couldn’t handle being messy. I thought that the person I needed to become, was perfect. They’re not messy. They know exactly how to deliver their feelings on a silver platter in the most perfect way. And that the response they would receive from delivering their feelings on a silver platter was this, you know, in kind, that those people are going to know exactly how to deal with whatever I hand them.

Tiff Carson: Yeah.

Malisa Hepner: So you know, it was really just a lot of that, and I had a lot of noise in my brain that I didn’t understand.

Tiff Carson: So that’s something that you have shared on your podcast and on your social media is some of the loudest voices that are in your mind weren’t actually your own.

Malisa Hepner: Mm-hmm.

Tiff Carson: What helped you begin to tell the difference between your truth and the voices of others, or of the expectations or fear or trauma?

Malisa Hepner: Well, honestly this is probably not the answer people ever expect me to give, but one of my first guests was a social worker out of Arizona who works for a guy named Troy Love. He has the Finding Peace Method and he wrote a book called the Finding Peace Workbook, and they break shame down into archetypes and they also break your wounding down into core beliefs and core narratives. Once I was exposed to the information, the very next time my brain did the thing where a really common example for this would be like, this happened to me all day, every day. My kids would come to me for something that immediately my thought is I can’t afford that, or I can’t, whatever the case was.  I don’t have the capacity for that because I didn’t.  I wouldn’t hear exactly what was being said, but I could feel like I’m the worst mom ever, and now I’m mad at you if you just wouldn’t, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Then here comes the other archetype.  You know, so it was a lot of that.

Malisa Hepner: But the very next time something like that happened, everything in my brain slowed just a little bit, just enough for me to be able to isolate each of those different archetypes and narratives that were happening. And I could say, oh. This is when that’s happening, which is all the time. But like I couldn’t really tell you. I mean, I was operating on autopilot too.  I mean, that’s what survival mode is. So I just was really unaware of all of it. So that very first time that I could pinpoint, oh. That’s what this is. Then there’s a whole process for externalizing the voices and all these things. And you know, I was so happy and relieved because I have schizophrenia in my family.

My older brother is very, very, very unmedicated schizophrenic, unhoused, the whole thing. My parents, I don’t know if my dad ever had a diagnosis and his psychosis may have happened after some drug stuff, but my mom was diagnosed as schizophrenia. I kind of think my mom had the same thing as me, though.

I kind of think she wasn’t schizophrenic. I think that because she didn’t like it never made sense to me. There was some psychosis after withdrawal that I saw, but a schizophrenia diagnosis never made sense to me about her. And I kind of think she just had really loud narratives that really will make you start to feel like you’re going crazy.

And I thought I was. So I’m not telling people I’m hearing voices. It wasn’t that it was just these narratives were so loud and strong and everything that I could possibly do to try to center myself. I didn’t know what was happening, so how am I gonna prevent it from happening or stop it once it started, right?

Malisa Hepner: So honestly, just understanding my wounding because you know, me saying the betrayal wound, that was such an eye-opener for me because I learned there’s a difference between I feel betrayed and you betrayed me. I was constantly accusing others of betraying me, not out loud. ’cause it didn’t always make sense.

Tiff Carson: Right.

Malisa Hepner: You took someone’s side over mine or you listened to their advice and not mine or you know, just the weirdest stuff. I knew betrayal, I knew what it felt like. I could even label it, but not out loud ’cause it was so embarrassing. ’cause why would I feel betrayed over something so stupid? So I just kept it all in all the time.

So to finally be like, Hey, I know what’s wrong. And between my husband and I, things changed overnight. ’cause man, what a different conversation to say oh, betrayal’s coming up. Like I don’t know why, but I’m feeling some betrayal other than a four hour fight.

Tiff Carson: Right. Yeah,

Malisa Hepner: Not a 4 hour fight ’cause it’s just me screaming. You know, I married the calmest person on earth, so he’s just looking at me like, baby, Hmm. I don’t know what you’re talking about. But, you know, I quit listening three and a half hours ago. So, for me it was so real. It was so real.

Tiff Carson: Mm-hmm.

Malisa Hepner: But that understanding what was happening was the key. I can deal with anything if I know what I’m looking at, but I felt completely outta control. I mean, my entire life was outta my hands at that point. I’m a victim to everything and everyone around me, even though if you had accused me of that at that time, I’d be like, I am not a victim.

Tiff Carson: Yeah.

Malisa Hepner: I’ve never been a victim in my life. You know? Like I would never have seen myself as someone who was completely victimizing my existence, but I absolutely was. That’s the thing.

Tiff Carson: Did it create burnout in you too, because you were carrying that for so long on that engine, that motor for years? Did it create a sense of burnout for you?

Malisa Hepner: Yes.  I mean that’s where I would say I ended up, when I was in profound darkness, I was burnout in every area of my life. I didn’t wanna go to work, but I went and that last year at work was not work, it was me just surviving.

Tiff Carson: Yeah.

Malisa Hepner: I would get home from work at 4, 4:30 and go straight to bed. I mean, I wasn’t sleeping, but I was also like, it, it was too much.

Tiff Carson: Numbing

Malisa Hepner: I mean, I could not be around people or any noise. Like I was so overstimulated at all times. I tell this story sometimes because it was really profound for me. The first time I went hiking with my family after healing, I started to cry because I could enjoy things that would have driven me insane prior.  There was really tall grass and it touched me the whole way through this path. I couldn’t have handled that.

Tiff Carson: Mm-hmm.

Malisa Hepner: They were making a lot of sounds, as was the grass as we moved through it. I wouldn’t have been able to handle that. Like I was just noticing all the things that really, I mean, I would’ve lashed out at everyone around me before because any sort of stimulation was too much. So that was another reason I would scream at my kids if they came to approach me. ’cause I’m like, I don’t have anything to give you right now. So yeah, I mean, burnout in every way that you can reach burnout.

Tiff Carson: Wow, so that’s unreal that that happened, or you experienced that too? Because there was a point in my, before my healing journey where I could not even handle the sound of my kids’ voices anymore, even if they were being quiet. Like it was nails on a chalkboard and I gotta get the hell outta here. And it was just, it was loud in our house.  But I was at that point where my body, my brain, my spirit couldn’t handle anymore until I dealt with my stuff.

Malisa Hepner: Mm-hmm. Yep.

Tiff Carson: And now when it’s that loud, like my shoulders go up a little bit, I have a different response system now that I’ve learned to quiet myself.

Malisa Hepner: Mm-hmm.

Tiff Carson: I also know when to say I need to remove myself for awhile.

Malisa Hepner: Absolutely. Yeah. And did you carry lot of shame over the fact that you literally just couldn’t stand to be around your own children?

Tiff Carson: Tons of shame, especially because all three of our kids are IVF babies. We had a difficult time getting our children and then I was like, I don’t wanna be around you. I worked so hard to get you here and now I don’t wanna be around you. It was a real mind F to get through that.

Malisa Hepner: Yeah.

Malisa Hepner: See, I didn’t have IVF, but I did go through a lot of fertility treatments to get my second child and the third child was a wow. After stopping treatments, I’d had two miscarriages and finally just got to the place where I was like, no more. We’re done. I separated my children’s room ’cause we had been saving a room for a baby for years. And finally I was like, give these boys, they’re getting to an age we gotta get the boys in separate rooms anyway, blah, blah, blah.

Tiff Carson: Mm-hmm.

Malisa Hepner: Literally, I swear to you, I got pregnant that day ’cause two weeks later I found out I was pregnant. Yeah. And I was like, cool, good for me. and I was so excited, but you gotta remember, I’m already not a healthy person now.  I have fear and stress all the time because I don’t know if I’m gonna lose this baby too.

Tiff Carson: Mm-hmm.

Malisa Hepner: Then I had her, I was thinking I wouldn’t have postpartum depression. She actually was hospitalized at four weeks old as well because she got septic and literally almost died. So that was cute, but I even got through that. Okay. But then when I went back to work part-time, see if it had been full-time, I think I could have done a lot better. But doing part-time where my husband and I were flexing our schedules around one another, it was too much. I’m the one taking this screaming baby in the car with me every time I’m dropping off a child or picking up a child from school.

This baby hated the car and I could not get my, and actually I felt, I feel so bad in hindsight now that I didn’t honor my husband’s experience ’cause I have this problem where if I am suffering, it’s obviously worse than what you’re going through. Okay? I know I didn’t honor his experience, but at the time it was just like if I could just not have her screaming in the car every time I have to transport a child, that would be amazing.

Tiff Carson: Mm-hmm.

Malisa Hepner: I got very depressed very quick and that didn’t really go away. Ever like I was over, once it hit, there was no way to fix it. ’cause I didn’t know how to regulate myself. I didn’t, and I couldn’t like, lessen the workload. So what am I gonna do? And in some ways that did get better whenever I actually completely switched fields for about seven years, when she was three. and so it was part-time and the childcare was just better and it was all good, but I mean, I entered into a field that was very high stress and so nothing really changed except for that. I did get more of a break from my kids and I needed it. Like I was ready to say that I don’t wanna be a stay at home mom.

And I knew that about myself from the time the boys were little. But also, I can’t do this part-time like I thought it was gonna be so great. I thought it was gonna be the best of both worlds. It’s the worst of both worlds for me. I got all the stuff I hated about it and none of the stuff I loved, and I was done, you know?

Tiff Carson: I think we have to honor that everybody can handle certain things. And others can’t in what they wanna do with their parenting, right? Some people are like, Nope, full-time. I need to work full-time. I’m a better mom when I am working full-time in another place and others love being a stay-at-home mom and just respecting that.

Malisa Hepner: Yeah. Yeah. And I was. I think I’m so used to white knuckling through experiences that I couldn’t, well, I’m always getting myself in a situation where I feel stuck. Now I understand you’re never stuck, but then there was no way out like of a the catastrophe.

Malisa Hepner: You know? Anytime I felt stuck, that was it. Unless somebody else could come rescue me. But nobody cares about me enough to do that. Right?

Malisa Hepner: But yeah, I was ready to throw in the towel for that arrangement pretty early on, but I also had severe anxiety, so I couldn’t trust that this baby was gonna be safe with someone else. I just couldn’t, I couldn’t get over it. It’s not because I have any judgment for anyone who puts like an infant in daycare? I wish to God, my brain didn’t do what it did, and I didn’t know how to control those thoughts either. So in hindsight, we could have done a lot different things and it would’ve worked out a lot better, but my fear had me chained to a situation that was really poor for my mental health.

Tiff Carson: Mm-hmm. So you are a podcaster as well, and your podcast is called Emotionally Unavailable, a name that stops people in their tracks. Why did you name it that and what did you hope to open up by calling it that?

Malisa Hepner: I think I chose that name because of the ability to make you stop and go, I like that, you know?  But I was on a journey of learning about becoming emotionally available. And also once I learned more about myself, I was like…we’re all emotionally unavailable until we do this work. And I talk a lot about, you know how TikTok, I don’t know if you’re on TikTok, I’m an addict, so I’m on there nonstop. But, there’s so much content, pander to the girls who want their boy back. You know, it’s whatever, but it’s about dismissive, avoidant, fearful, avoidant, anxious attachment, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I’m like, let me get one thing straight. We are all dismissive, avoidant. In some area of our life, like maybe in relationships, this person triggered your anxious.

’cause I mean, I have a client who’s pretty avoidant, but this boy triggers her anxious, you know, like every other area’s super avoidant. But this boy triggers her anxious. So, I mean, I think we’re all avoidant and that’s really what I’m trying to bring attention to is the fact that there is a process to learn how to function better in this body and until you understand all of the things you’re doing to not function in this body, you’re just gonna continue making the same mistakes over and over and over. So, I mean, I really probably named it that because I thought it was hilarious, but also, I mean, and it’s transformed what my mission was. I think at first, I just was like, I wanna talk, you know, like I had felt so silenced, you know?

And I wanted, I’ve always shared about my journey, so I wanted to share in real time what was happening in my life, and it was very real. I mean those early episodes, you can hear I’d been crying for hours prior to jumping on, you know, like stress couldn’t manage her, you know, it was nonstop and I was just constantly freaking out about something.

I like to tell the joke that it’s not a joke, but I, you know, think it’s hilarious now. But I remember sitting here one day with another tech issue and being like, all right, I get it. I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it. You’re telling me until I stop reacting like a psycho to every minor challenge, I’m gonna keep getting all these minor challenges.

Malisa Hepner: And that was true. And so I started right then. I was like, fine, you know what, this is probably fine and this is gonna work out one way or the other, and I just need to quit. And man, that was a real eye-opener, that you could choose to not care about stress. You know, it’s not like that simple, but you know, I mean, it’s pretty easy to be like…how much control does my stressing give me over this? Hmm, zero. Let’s move on and just see how this works out. You know, try something new. Cancel. I know that would be really scary, but cancel if you can’t get the tech issues figured out. You know, I just, everything was a catastrophe though. So yeah. I mean now I hope that it’s just inspiring conversations like people healing, about people growing some spiritual stuff, some coaches, come on whatever. But I’m pretty into the let’s get to the heart of you. How’d you get here? I wanna hear about you, you know?

Tiff Carson: Mm-hmm. So I’m curious, once you made the decision to keep going and actually go on this healing journey, did those early days of healing look like? Not just for you, but for your family? And what surprised you most about healing journey?

Malisa Hepner: Oh man, you give really good questions.  I would say so the earliest when I made the decision of okay, I’m gonna stay. So I need to start figuring some stuff out. The earliest things I did was get creative, I started to tap into anything that would put me into a flow state. So I wrote some children’s books and self-published those.

I did all the artwork and everything and I just kind of started pulling at my resources, what do I have inside me that I still have? Any sort of capability to do something with, you know,

Tiff Carson: Yeah.

Malisa Hepner: So I actually wrote several books, Children’s and some other stuff around that time and just poured my heart into learning how to make covers and stuff like that so that really was a very helpful distraction because I was still not doing well, but I’m doing my best.

Tiff Carson: Mm-hmm.

Malisa Hepner: And then that kind of just evolved into okay, it’s time to quit our job. Like we’re gonna do that. So I did that and then I started my podcast. I just was moving some pieces early on.

I think I was just putting pieces together, just moving them just slightly, like how can we make today a little better than yesterday? And then once I got the information from about the Finding Peace Workbook, I went all in on that. Like I was like, oh yeah, let’s get this figured out. And I can remember too, even prior to that, I had kind of a spiritual awakening early on in the healing. And I was getting these, some people call them downloads. Some people call ’em epiphanies or Aha’s or whatever, and I remember the very first time, and I did a solo episode about this.

Malisa Hepner: I say episode four, but I looked the other day, it’s episode three and I called it Embracing My Fire because it was the first time I…I do New Moon and Full Moon stuff, like manifesting.

Tiff Carson: Yep.

Malisa Hepner: So this was the first time I did an identity audit and I was going through like this person I’m trying to become, this is her identity, this is what it looks like, and I was thinking on that because I did the incongruence, like how, what’s different between who I am now and who is this and what do I need to do to bridge that gap.

And I was kind of thinking about it as I drove the next day and I’ll tell you what, it was probably the most profound moment out of all of this besides learning like I really wasn’t schizophrenic. I started thinking, ’cause I would always future journal about this…I want to be a Zen Buddha person, because remember, my biggest shame was about my reactivity. So one day I was gonna be this person who is really calm, really just chill, like always unbothered, perpetually unbothered.

Tiff Carson: Mm-hmm.

Malisa Hepner: But I had also, I had lived a life of passive aggression, fawning, freezing. Like people would say wildly inappropriate stuff to my face, and I’d be like, “huh”, leave, overthink about it for days, complain about it for days, maybe I’d send a strongly worded email, but making sure it was perfectly crafted so that I could still come out looking good on the other side.

You know what I’m saying?

Tiff Carson: I’m laughing because it’s so relateable!

Malisa Hepner: You were that way too. Yes. I was such a people pleaser

Tiff Carson: Yeah.

Malisa Hepner: And so, you know, I didn’t know how to have tough conversations, but there, at the end of that job, I was off putting people in their place, I mean, I was standing up for myself. I was standing up for everyone else in a way that I felt proud of, like pure fire.

I had really learned to embrace the fire inside of me and, and I wasn’t even ashamed if it came out rude. I didn’t care because I was like sometimes you have to be rude, sometimes you do. And so I was, I was thinking about that versus this Zen Buddha person and I was like, wait a second. For over a year, I had been journaling about wanting to become this person over a year, and it just all of a sudden hit me like, I don’t wanna extinguish this fire that I just found, like I don’t want that to go away. I want Buddha AND I can be all these things. And then I thought. I’m already all those things. I just am not quiet. Like I’m already everything I wanna be. I’m some things I don’t wanna be. And that’s fine too.

Malisa Hepner: I can work on these things. I don’t wanna have to completely erase every ounce of my personality and go get a lobotomy to be a good human. Like I can be a good human who cusses at her kids. I can be a good human who, you know, says the F word, every other word. I can be a good human and tell the AT&T guy who stopped on my porch uninvited yesterday in a very stern way, “I have a service I’m very happy with”.

Tiff Carson: Mm-hmm.

Malisa Hepner: So I’m not interested, but thank you so much and let them, and then repeat it like a psycho three times until they walk off my porch. That’s not, that doesn’t make me a bad person. It makes me a person who doesn’t want you coming and soliciting on my porch

Tiff Carson: Yeah.

Malisa Hepner: You know, I’ve done it the other way where my son and I were laughing so hard about the times we have signed up for Shit because we were so uncomfortable with the whole thing, and then he was smarter than me and immediately canceled.

Not me, baby. I got them magazines. I got them magazines I couldn’t afford. You know what I’m talking about?

Malisa Hepner: I can’t tell you how times I’ve done it.

Tiff Carson: Yeah, it’s where you don’t wanna hurt their feelings. You wanna be a people pleaser. Now I literally, open the door crack and I’m like, no, I’m good. Thank you. No, thank you.

Malisa Hepner: Yeah, they don’t take no easily. And I’ve just learned, you gotta present a certain persona when you’re having those conversations, but that doesn’t make me a bad person who needs to change everything about me. You know what I mean? So that was the first time, and I’ve had the honor of deepening my understanding of that too, a couple times where I’m like…was I still doing that? Like I still was trying to be perfect about something and I love it. I love it when it hits me in the face and I go, oh, I was afraid to be messy again. Okay. Because that’s all it is. You know, I will always struggle probably in some way or another of holding myself to some perfectionist standard, but I also realize that’s why I was holding everyone else to that same standard.

You know, and I’m like, oh no, I’m not meeting it either, but at least I’m over here shaming myself to death. You could, you know, do that too. My God. You’re just expecting that. You disappointed me. What the crap?

Tiff Carson: So you are now also a therapist, right?

Malisa Hepner: Mm.

Tiff Carson: So you have trained to help heal other people as well. How did it feel to be for the first time when you were doing it, how did it feel to be on the other side, not helping that person, but to ask for support for yourself? And did it did it affect how you show up for your clients too?

Malisa Hepner: Okay, so this is the thing. I got my master’s in 2007, but I didn’t pursue licensure until 2020.  Because I have a social work license, it was kind of harder to find people to supervise and all this stuff way back when. And the more I was kind of around therapist at that time, the more I was like, I don’t know, that just doesn’t really seem like I would be happy doing that. So I really didn’t pursue that for a really long time.

Malisa Hepner: It wasn’t until I quit my last job and I started my podcast that I actually started being a therapist, so it was not that long after my own healing.

Malisa Hepner: And it doesn’t necessarily change anything because it all happened around the same time, but it definitely is so different than it would’ve been. That’s why I didn’t wanna do it too. I don’t wanna play ACT therapist. So what I decided was I’m gonna be the type of therapist I wanna be. Like, whatever that looks like, I wanna do that. And so I always tell my clients, or if they’re doing a consultation with me or whatever, I’m like, listen, it is not my LCSW that makes me really good at this.

I’m gonna give you the answers I found for myself and also I’m gonna cuss and I’m gonna vape during session and I’m gonna blah, blah, blah. So if that’s not for you, that’s not gonna hurt my feelings at all. I will even help you find someone else, that’s okay.  But I need you to understand my magic is when I don’t suppress any part of who I am, so that I’m gonna bring you every ounce of who I am. And I promise you it’s, it’s gonna change your entire existence, but you gotta know I’m gonna be me. You be you. I’m gonna be me. But it’s really not my education that makes me so good at this. You know? First of all, when you start to understand yourself really, really well, it doesn’t take much to hear what the problem is when someone else is talking, you know?

I’m like, oh, there’s the shame. Oh, there’s that. Oh, there’s that. And it’s so easy to get people right back on track. I mean, I’m not really seeing anyone in some deep, dark mental health crisis. I would, but that’s not who has come to me.

Malisa Hepner: I don’t know if you’re into astrology, but what’s funny is I get a lot of people around their Saturn return.  That’s a very common age for me.

Tiff Carson: Mm-hmm.

Malisa Hepner: And then the other ones are around my age. Yeah, so I get everyone, it’s either been, like Saturn return people, I’ve had one a little younger than Saturn return, or my age. So it’s just funny to me because I’m always like, yeah, you were meant for me.

But I just want them to know who they’re getting ’cause I’m never gonna pretend to be anything other than I am. And I think my story is what’s helping inform my practice.

Tiff Carson: Absolutely.  So do you wanna talk a little bit about your loss and the trauma and how that has shaped your parenting now?

Malisa Hepner: Oh gosh. I don’t even know, honestly. So my dad died of an overdose when I was 15 and then my mom died when I was pregnant with my first, and I was 22. But I think it informed my perfectionism standards that I placed on myself a lot, because in my efforts to be nothing like them, I thought the only way to do better was to do it to every book or, you know, and I didn’t feel solid. In most of my intuition, because I hadn’t even learned what my own voice sounded like yet. There were times on mother’s intuition, like when my daughter almost died, I knew this is serious. We gotta get her to the hospital. And when my son got rheumatic fever when he was in fifth grade, I knew that was serious. I could have that intuition, but for the most part, like honestly. What informed my parenting the most was a particular arche of type of shame that makes you very afraid of what other people are thinking or saying about you.

Tiff Carson: Mm-hmm.

Malisa Hepner: And for so long, I just needed them to make me look good and that be the only way I could feel validated in what I was doing as a mom.

Tiff Carson: Mm-hmm.

Malisa Hepner: So I spent a lot of time just shaming other parents, not to their face obviously, ’cause I’m a people pleaser. But I like most women, unless you figure out what you’re doing, I was programmed to socialize by, gossip and complaining.

Malisa Hepner: So a lot of my parenting, was making mom friends who were willing to shame other parents. So that first one got such unreasonable expectations placed on him, I know that we all do that. But also I know my primary motivator was, make it obvious I’m doing this well. Okay. You are a reflection of me.

Malisa Hepner: And this needs to be the reflection we are presenting.

Tiff Carson: Mm-hmm.

Malisa Hepner: I wasn’t aware of that and I didn’t ever actually say those words, but that in hindsight is what informed my parenting was just nonstop shame, blame, just, and never feeling like I was enough.

And I would say, now, I always say now I really view myself more as a shaman for my children than anything else because my boys are 18 and 22 now, and my daughter’s almost 11. So it’s just different because I’m just guiding, I don’t need you to make choices. If I punish, it’s not because I’m punishing, I’m removing something that I’m placing a barrier between you and something that you’ve done that’s hurting you.

Tiff Carson: Mm-hmm.

Malisa Hepner: I’m removing the presence of something that’s hurting you, or just removing the ability to hurt yourself, things like that. But there’s no arbitrary consequences around here, which my oldest son says, I’m a permissive parent now. And I’m like, I’ll take that. I’ll take that. I will. Because it’s not like I’m not having very deep conversations with the 11-year-old. I mean, we are, we’re talking about what’s right, what’s wrong,

Tiff Carson: Mm-hmm.

Malisa Hepner: But not from the place that it ever would’ve been before because you have to determine what’s right for you. And so, you know, on the other side of all this, I feel so strong as her mother, whereas before I was like, I am not the mother this baby needs.  She’s so strong, she’s so whatever. Like I’m incapable of parenting her, you know?

Tiff Carson: Mm-hmm.

Malisa Hepner: And she was so in love with me that it just piled on my shame because I was like, I don’t even like you, you know, like that. It just hurt me so much ’cause I didn’t want anything to do with her. She was just too much for me all the time.

And now I realize that everything was too much for me. But yeah, it just piled on the shame. But I just, now I’m just really about teaching them how to love themselves better. And that everything you do just needs to come from that place. Love and compassion for yourself because when you give that to you, you can extend that to others.

Tiff Carson: Mm-hmm.

Malisa Hepner: Now listen, you know, they think I’m full of it half the time and they, I’ll listen to a lot of what I say, but I have heard my oldest will hear me say something over and over, like on a podcast or something, and then all of a sudden he’s saying it. I’m like, Hmm, they’re listening. Best feeling ever. Best feeling ever, because I don’t even need you to gimme the credit, but at least you’re hearing me.

Tiff Carson: Exactly. So you did leave, like you said, you left your job and stepped fully into building this life that’s on your terms. What was the scariest part that leap, and what has surprised you most about being your own leader now?

Malisa Hepner: The scariest part was loss of income and being made fun of. Oh my God, people are gonna be making fun of me. And my husband said, baby, let’s talk. People are gonna make fun of you. You’re right, like people you know are gonna see you posting things on social media and they’re gonna make fun of you.

You’ve done that too. You’ve done that. So we both know that that’s gonna happen. But then what? They’re gonna watch you and when they start to see you have success, they’re gonna say, can you tell me how you did that?

Tiff Carson: Mm-hmm.

Malisa Hepner: So that was a big one. I was very afraid of being judged, received, perceived, any of the things I wanted so badly to be seen, but I was afraid of being seen.

Tiff Carson: okay, stop right there. You just nailed my exact insecurity. I know I’m supposed to be seen to help people, but terrified of it.

Tiff Carson: What the heck is that about?

Malisa Hepner: Well, sometimes I think if it’s new, it’s gonna be scary. Like our brain is very smart on how to keep us alive. So it’s gonna say that’s gonna kill you if you do that. You know? And there are times when I still have never posted live on TikTok because it freaks me out.

But I went to the other day and hit three roadblocks and I was like, oh, well I tried it. I guess you have to apply to do that. So I was like, oh, well look, look, I was doing it and it wasn’t my fault.

Malisa Hepner: But I think starting really small, if you’re a person who has to learn how to regulate your nervous system, that’s a lifelong battle.

So every time we go to do something, we still have to use the tools of oh, I’m feeling dysregulated. Time to regulate. But yeah, I think the fear of being seen is just…well, if you were a good girl, good girls are, they’re, they’re just, you know, helping everyone else. They’re not supposed to have attention or praise, any of the things. They’re just supposed to go be for everyone else. So do you know your astrology?

Tiff Carson: I don’t know. I’m a Sag.

Malisa Hepner: That makes sense. I’m a Gemini.

Tiff Carson: It’s so crazy. I know that I’m supposed to be doing this and I’ve been doing it for five years, this podcast, and putting my, but I’m gonna be starting to do more and I still have that…it’s the imposter syndrome too, like what do I have to offer, why would they want to work with me.  Why does that keep coming up .  It’s pretty much every other day.

Malisa Hepner: Probably ’cause you haven’t addressed it. You’re at a point where it’s getting louder because you need to address it.  And there’s just so much happening astrologically too that is pushing you that way. But, I don’t have great advice because for me, what really helped me was looking at my chart and my north node, which is like the area I’m supposed see head to is in Leo.

So like I’m supposed to, I knew I was built for a stage, like I knew that and it’s still terrifying to me don’t play, but I just go, okay, what would happen if you just pretended to be this person already?  You know, so it helped and changed when I started talking about myself differently on social media.

Like I used to play small even just a few months ago where I’m like, oh, well you gotta have proof to show people before you start acting like you’re this big, bad person. And then I was like, no, you don’t. I’m the proof shoot. You know? So like I just started like literally feeding myself really full of that type of information of I mean. Honestly, we know it would never have been like made to feel like your purpose if it wasn’t your purpose.

Malisa Hepner: And I think knowing that helps me. Someone said, A future version of you already has this, and that’s the reason you feel it. That helped me. So just programming myself to believe things like that. But I think Tiff, some of your problem might be trying to go too far, too fast. You gotta stretch into that comfort. So whatever that means for you, whether it’s, I did my first live on Instagram, that was a big deal for me. I mean there’s a small part of me that still feels like only two people joined, or you know, when people see this, they’re gonna, but I’m also like, what are those people doing?

What they doing that I need to care so much about what they’re thinking about me? ’cause guess what? They’re not doing anything cool. I’ll tell you that much. They’re really not. And I learned that lesson so many years ago, and I’m thankful for that. And I repeat this to my daughter, at least weekly. People doing better than you don’t even take their time or energy to talk negatively about you. They are too busy lifting others and themselves up. So why would I even care now in the moment I might care. But those are the things I’m constantly feeding myself so that I understand like their stuff’s about them.

My stuff’s about me. So just as it’s really been more of a spiritual evolution that allows me to go, but I mean, I’m stretching little bits at a time.

Tiff Carson: Mm-hmm.

Malisa Hepner: I did do my first keynote the other day and that was pretty exciting. But it was easier because I had gotten to be in the room I was gonna do it in for like several different times. ’cause I was on a panel interview the day before and I knew the energy of the crowd. So you know I might be afraid before or even during, but I don’t do a lot of afterwards because I know I’m comfortable knowing, speaking is my gift. Like when I tell stories, it’s very magnetic. I know that about myself, like I’ve watched people respond to me, so I know. So I just lean into stuff like that all the time. Not to say I don’t have those periods of like, why me or you know, but I’m not so and so, and you know what? They’re not me. You know, they’re not me either, and I am my own magic.

Tiff Carson: You are your own magic. And one of the things that is going to be magic and that I saw it on your Instagram is the Empowerment Exchange Summit that you are hosting.  And I gotta tell you, it is on a very special day. May 31st is my brother’s birthday. He passed away 2021 of a fentanyl overdose, so when I saw it was on his birthday, it was special.

Tiff Carson: I love it.

Malisa Hepner: Yeah.

Tiff Carson: Would you like to share what this summit is about, who it’s for, and what your heart hopes it creates for others?

Malisa Hepner: Yes, and this is just me just spit balling here because I haven’t done a lot of like verbal promotion for this event. So I can’t give you the little scripted answer I got. Okay.

Malisa Hepner: I want to teach people how to build a life they’re in love with, how to teach them a small bit about emotional hygiene, about presence, mindfulness, whatever. And so I had just created this course called Surviving the SHIT show building up your inner world when the world around you is falling apart.

And I picked some people that I met through my podcast and said, Hey, I feel called to this and I would love for you to join. No pressure if you don’t want to.

Malisa Hepner: I’m so excited. So we have a human design specialist and she is very good. Like I’m not playing. I met her on my podcast and she gave me a free like session for that.

Malisa Hepner: I was like, oh my God, this changes everything. And actually I didn’t even invite her to the summit until then because we hadn’t met yet. And then whenever I did, I was like, oh no, I kind of want you to join what you think about that, you know?  So she’s Lauren, she’s amazing. She understands human design so well, and she just teaches you how to integrate that into your life and your business so that you can, you know, be doing things the way that are authentic to you.

And that’s why some of your imposter syndrome may be because you’re not sharing your stuff in the way that is really aligned with you. Like for me it is storytelling.

Malisa Hepner: When I get to hoity-toity and think I need to teach, I gotta remember I have to share, storytelling is the way for me.

And then Natasha’s business is called the March Music Collective, and she’s teaching about sound and how anything really can be music, but like how to integrate that into your life as another tool for building a life that you’re in love with. And I picked Natasha because her episode with me meant so much. She taught me this word, timur. She’s all classically trained in music and I know nothing. And the way she explained it was basically like nobody else on this earth. Like even if they try to replicate your timur, they can’t because you are you’re own unique sound signature is your timur. Nobody else can do that.

Tiff Carson: Yeah.

Malisa Hepner: I was right smack dab in the middle of embracing my magic and all of the things about me, not just the things I liked, but the things I don’t like and understand. You can’t have light without darkness. And you know, alchemizing all of that. And I was like, that’s right. My tams my magic. So it meant so much to me.

And, McKayla is somebody who deconstructed from religion. I think she still has a, a core belief, but I think she’s not religious and she is teaching people how to incorporate spirituality into their life just for a better existence.  And obviously I’m a fan of that because I wouldn’t have asked her to be a part of it, but I wouldn’t be here in this exact spot without the spiritual stuff because I now have a fundamental belief that I’m supported.

Tiff Carson: Mm-hmm.

Malisa Hepner: Whereas before, a lot of my thinking and feeling really was about punishment or reward, and now it’s just about what’s good for you and not good for you.  And being cleared of those things that aren’t meant for you and things coming in that are. And so that alone has helped me build a life that I’m completely in love with. And so that’s basically the events. May 31st, 11:00 AM central standard. We’re just each gonna give a talk and we’re very excited about it.

The two for one sale goes off on the 17th. We have a VIP option and we’re each marketing it like it gives you a free session with me, but actually if you buy a VIP ticket, you get a free session with all of us. So like you schedule it separately obviously, but you in my VIP package is a two hour package where I use tarot, astrology, my therapy, to give people really clear cut guidance, record the session and then they get a 30 minute follow up with me a month later. Like my VIP is legit and their stuff is really good too. I mean, God, everybody needs a human design reading with Lauren. But yeah, so that’s basically it, we’re just trying to change the world, you know, just trying to teach you how we changed ours.

Tiff Carson: If someone is listening right now, that is where you once were in that really messy, really messy part, completely exhausted and unsure how to go on, what would you want to say directly to that person?

Malisa Hepner: I would say all of the things that you hate about yourself right now and all of the voices that are telling you to hate all of those things, those are the things that are your most valuable tools.  But if they’re talking to you, you need to listen. It’s just time to listen and understand that the way you’ve done things up to now was fine. That’s fine. We don’t have to carry all this shame over the way we did things and we should have known better. Now we do know better and it means we’re supposed to do better. And you know, ’cause I went through that too where I thought because I had the information, I was gonna be perfect with it. No baby, we’re never gonna be perfect. And so when you’re sitting in profound darkness the way I was, I think if you can just believe I know what I’m talking about, and that it really will get better with just a couple of small shifts.

It’s not even that big man. That’s what’s crazy is it’s not even…you don’t have to go change your whole world. You don’t have to leave your spouse, you don’t have to abandon the kids. Like you don’t, you don’t have to do all the things I thought I was gonna have to do to have a different life. You don’t have to quit your job. You don’t have to do any of that.

Tiff Carson: Mm-hmm.

Malisa Hepner: You just have to understand why you’re doing what you’re doing and, and once you get that figured out, you get all that control that you’re searching for right now and all the dumb stuff you’re doing for control, you’re not gonna have to do those things anymore because you’re gonna understand the huge amount of control that you actually have when you learn why you do what you do and stop doing it.

Tiff Carson: Alright, if you want to learn more about Malisa, this is where you can check her out. Her website is www.empoweredwithmalisahepner.org and her Instagram is @malisa.hepner.

I end every interview asking my guest what they are grateful for because even in the hard, there is always, always something beautiful. What are you grateful for today?

Malisa Hepner: In this very moment, I’m grateful that it’s sunny outside, but honestly, I live in deep gratitude for that darkness because I couldn’t have the amount of light that I have now if you haven’t experienced the same amount of dark. And as much as I used to be so triggered by people saying, there’s always something to be grateful for, and I’m not gonna sit here in a toxic positive kind of way and say that, but for me, what I’ve learned is, it all happened for me and not to me, and I was never gonna reach a life I was in love with, without getting to a place where I hated every last thing about my life. And how can you understand what true love for your life is if you haven’t gone through a hatred for it? You know, so I’m grateful for everything.

Tiff Carson: Thank you for that truth and and allowing us into your story, because you showed us that healing is not linear at all, and it’s not perfect, and it’s something that we don’t have to do alone. That’s the big one. We don’t have to do any of this alone. And by us having our podcasts, it’s showing that you and I talking, we’re talking. We’re not doing this alone. We’re sharing the stories.

Malisa Hepner: Yeah. And that’s the thing. I did have to shed a lot of people in my personal life. I did. They were toxic. And that’s my fault because I surrounded myself with people who were never gonna ask me how I was, so that I didn’t have to share. I could just fix them and take them on as projects.

And that’s what I did. And now I’m building a community and most of it’s online, but it doesn’t make it any less valuable or real, you know? So your people are looking for you. This is something I tell people all the time, your people are looking for you, and as you shed some of these layers of masking and inauthenticity, you’ll be a beacon for the people that you are meant to find and who are meant to find you, and they will, and your life is going to get so much better.

Tiff Carson: To anyone listening who’s been holding it all together for far too long, this is your reminder that you don’t have to anymore and you are allowed to fall apart. You’re allowed to feel it all, and you’re allowed to choose yourself again and again. Malisa’s journey reminds us that even in the darkest moments, there is still a flicker of light and sometimes that flicker becomes the fire that will guide you home. So breathe…hand on your heart…and trust that you are not alone. One breath, one heartbeat. One brave moment at a time.

If you are feeling the nudge to begin your own healing journey, I’d love to walk beside you. You can download a free guided meditation www.tiffcarson.com.

It’s a grounding practice for those heavy moments when you forget how to breathe. And I host a monthly Healing Heart Workshop on Zoom. Where we walk through the pillars of the Healing Heart Journey framework together, and the next one is on Tuesday, May 20th at 7:00 PM Mountain Standard. And last this fall, I am hosting my first Healing Heart Retreat, a two day in-person experience in the mountains of Canmore, Alberta. It’s happening October 18th and 19th, and I would be honored to hold space for you there. All the details are available on my website, www.tiffcarson.com.

Thank you, Malisa, for being here and sharing your journey with us, and until next week, take care.

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