Her (counselor): “How are you today?”
Me (8-year-old me): “Fine.”
Her: Silence.
Me: Silence.
Her: “Okay, well, that was a good session today. You’re doing good. See you in two weeks.”

But I wasn't doing good at all.

At eight years old, I was sent to counseling while my family was being changed by domestic violence, trauma, and ultimately divorce. I was a little girl carrying fear, sadness, confusion, and experiences I didn't yet have the words—or the safety—to explain.

But I was also witnessing something I wouldn't fully understand until many years later.

I was watching my mother experience heartbreak.

She wasn't simply going through a divorce. She was facing the loss of a marriage, a family structure, dreams, expectations, and a version of the future she once believed she would have.

And there I was—her daughter—trying to make sense of my own heartbreak while watching her navigate hers.

That experience stayed with me.

More than 30 years later, I found myself sitting on the other side of the counseling chair. I became the kind of therapist I needed when I was eight: present, curious, compassionate, and willing to recognize that sometimes “I'm fine” is where the real conversation needs to begin.

But my journey has also taught me something much bigger.

Heartbreak isn't limited to the ending of a romantic relationship.

Sometimes we're grieving a person. Sometimes a marriage. Sometimes a family. Sometimes an identity. And sometimes we're mourning the life we thought we'd have.

That eight-year-old girl couldn't have known that one day those experiences would help shape my life's work.

Today, as a speaker, psychotherapist, author, woman of faith, and Next Chapter Strategist™, I help women do what I eventually watched my mother—and later learned myself—have to do:

Find life again after loss, love, and letting go.

My story began with a little girl who didn't know how to explain what hurt.

Today, I use my voice to remind women that heartbreak doesn't have to be the end of their story.

There is life on the other side of what you thought your life would be.

And there is always room for a next chapter.

At eight years old, I was asked a question no child should have been responsible for answering:

“Who do you want to live with?”

My parents were navigating the heartbreak of a troubled marriage, domestic violence, and ultimately divorce. Somewhere in the middle of their pain, I became more than their daughter. I became the listener, the bridge, and at times, the emotional negotiator—trying to make sense of adult circumstances I was far too young to understand.

I didn't have language for it then, but I was witnessing something that would eventually become central to my life's work:

What happens when the life you thought you'd have suddenly becomes a life you have to let go.

I watched my mother navigate heartbreak and the ending of a marriage while I experienced the loss of the family life I had known. We were living different versions of heartbreak under the same roof.

Years later, when I entered graduate school to study Marriage and Family Therapy, I found myself thinking about that eight-year-old girl again—the child who had absorbed fear, sadness, uncertainty, and responsibility that never belonged to her.

Only this time, I wasn't sitting on that sofa as the little girl caught in the middle.

I was preparing to become someone who could help others find their way through it.

My professional journey eventually led me to become a psychotherapist, speaker, author, workshop facilitator, and Next Chapter Strategist™. But life would also teach me that heartbreak doesn't end when childhood ends—and it doesn't always come from divorce.

Heartbreak can come through relationships that end, people we lose, families that change, children who grow up, caregiving roles we never anticipated, dreams that don't happen, and seasons that force us to become someone we never expected to have to be.

Sometimes, the deepest grief comes from mourning the life we thought we'd have.

That understanding became part of the foundation for Grown Lady Business™ and the work I now do with women living life in the middle.

Today, my mission is deeply personal: I help women move through heartbreak without falling apart—and find life again after loss, love, and letting go.

I help women honor what happened without allowing it to determine everything that happens next. Through resilience, reflection, practical strategy, and hope, I help them rediscover themselves and begin building a life that fits the woman they are becoming.

Because I learned something from that little girl sitting on the sofa all those years ago:

Sometimes life changes the story without asking our permission.

But we still get a say in what we write next.

Welcome to Chapter 8.