The Truth About Trusting Your Journey

In a world that constantly tells women who they should be and what they should carry, we created Trusting Her Journey as a space to exhale.

A space where you don’t have to hide your struggles. Where you can say the hard things out loud.

Where you can finally admit what you need, without guilt.

In this first episode, you’ll meet your hosts: two therapists and women who’ve had to learn (and re-learn) how to listen to ourselves, set boundaries, and stop abandoning our needs. We talk about what Trusting Her Journey means to us, and how our own experiences with burnout, overgiving, and holding it all together brought us here.

This is where we talk about what it means to trust yourself again after seasons of burnout, grief, transition, or transformation. Especially when you’re feeling the pressure to be everything for everyone, or doubting your own voice.

In this episode (and every one after), expect honest conversations on self-love, setting boundaries, mental health, rest, community, and learning to hold space for both the beauty and the mess of your journey.

Whether you're a longtime listener of personal growth podcasts or this is your first one, we want this space to feel like a soft landing, a place where your story matters and your healing is welcome.

💡 Fuel for the Road Ahead:​

💭 Reflection Questions

Take a moment to breathe, then ask yourself:

• Where in my life am I still second-guessing what I know to be true?
• Where have I been showing up strong… but silently struggling?
• What would it look like to trust myself more in that area?

You don’t have to fix it all today.
You just have to be honest with yourself.

👉🏾 Small Step

Take a moment to acknowledge one decision that you've made that brought you peace, no matter how small.

New episodes drop every week.

🔗 Resources & Announcements

We’re building a supportive online community.
Stay tuned for ways to connect with us off the podcast and meet other listeners on the journey.

Let’s Stay Connected

Follow the show on Instagram → @trustingherjourneypodcast
Follow Felicia → @soulguidedhealing_wellness
Follow Christalyn → @christalynthecounselor

Tap Follow wherever you listen so you never miss an episode.

Got a topic you’d love us to cover, or a story to share?
Email us: hello@trustingherjourney.com

If this episode resonated with you, share it with a friend who needs it.

Looking for Therapy?

Christalyn is a Licensed Professional Counselor in South Carolina. She offers faith-integrated therapy for women navigating burnout, boundaries, and emotional exhaustion.
→ carolinacounselingsc.com

Felicia is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and Licensed Mental Health Therapist in Virginia, Georgia, and Texas,  She provides trauma-informed, somatic-based therapy for women ready to heal and reconnect with themselves.
→ soulguidedhealing...

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

If you've been exposed to a lot of trauma, especially in your childhood and especially even in adulthood, the emotional trauma that so many people experience, it's truly hard for them to make a decision. I think that we do have to acknowledge that because I know that someone may be listening to this episode and like, okay, well, it's not as easy as just drop down in your breath and breathe and get Right. Welcome to the Trust in Her Journey podcast. I'm Felicia.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

And I'm Krystalyn.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

This podcast is a safe space for women who are carrying a lot. Women who are trying to trust themselves again while managing the weight of their roles and responsibilities.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

We know what it's like to feel stretched thin because you're constantly showing up for everyone and putting your own needs last. Here, we have honest conversations about the silent struggles many women face.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

We're so glad you're here. In every episode, we'll talk about the real challenges women navigate, whether it's juggling work and family, carving out time for yourself, or learning to trust your instincts again.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

You'll hear us share personal stories and lessons from our experience to help you trust your path and rethink what peace and balance actually looks like for you.

SPEAKER_00 1:21

Our goal is to guide you through the hard moments with honest conversations about boundaries, self-care, and leaning on your faith for strength.

SPEAKER_01 1:29

If you've been feeling overwhelmed, unseen, or unsure about how to care for yourself while caring for everyone else, you're in the right place.

SPEAKER_00 1:38

Just a quick heads up, this podcast isn't a substitute for working with a licensed counselor or therapist, but don't worry, if you need that kind of support, we've got some resources for you in the show notes. Let's start the conversation. Welcome to Trust in Her Journey. We are so excited to finally share this space with you. This has been a long time coming, a thought that we've had for a while now. I would say since 2023 or yeah, 2023. And now to see that we actually have this thing up and running is just so exciting. In this first episode, we just kind of want to have an honest conversation about why we started Trusting Her Journey and what this podcast means to us. But ultimately, we just want to start. both of us would like to say from the bottom of our heart, thank you. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for listening. Thank you for sharing this episode and even future episodes with the women in your lives. We're just so grateful to be in this space and we hope that this space will serve you in more than one way. But I thought it would be great for us to start off with just sharing a little bit about who we are. So maybe you follow us on social media. Maybe you are a part of our email list, our clients, and we just want to start off by introducing ourselves, sharing a little bit about us. So Crystal, I'll let you kick it off.

SPEAKER_01 3:35

Oh, well, I'm Crystalyn Howard. I am a licensed counselor in the state of South Carolina. I have always had a heart for supporting women, especially women who give so much of themselves, sometimes everything from themselves, and they have nothing left to do. But it's really, really difficult for a lot of us, I think nowadays, because you have families, you have a lot of responsibilities and a lot of roles. And when it's come time to do something like practice self-care, you're kind of spent, you're overwhelmed, and then you're left feeling like no one understands, no one's listening, no one even takes a moment to ask you how you're feeling or how you're doing. So my job is to give a voice to those women who've been suffering silently.

SPEAKER_00 4:27

Yes. Oh, I love that. Okay, so I am Felicia Chandler. I am a licensed therapist, a licensed clinical social worker, but also a licensed mental health therapist. I practice in the states of Virginia, Georgia, and Texas. Also a lover of all things wellness, but I am a fierce believer in the power of self-love. My mission has always been to create a safe space where I can help women Thank you so much. of like a combination of the things that we are passionate about. It started off as like a IG Live conversation that we wanted to have about setting boundaries during the holiday season. Yeah, it was like

SPEAKER_01 5:47

Thanksgiving, right? We were all struggling.

SPEAKER_00 5:50

Everyone was struggling with like, how do you navigate the holiday season? I think it was Thanksgiving. And from that conversation, I think I our first meeting that we had just to talk about the live, we were on Zoom for two hours. Literally the first time it was two hours. That was the first time that you and I had actually had any type of conversation. We followed each other on social media. We commented on each other things, but we never had a full conversation. And so from there, that conversation led into one after the other. And what we realized is we ultimately have the same mission, the same goal. We may accomplish it in different ways, but ultimately, our goals align, our values align. And we thought, why not carry this conversation a little bit further? Why not? I mean, for the sake of the podcast, why not trust the journey and actually create a podcast without knowing exactly how to do it? We're just trusting that. We're trusting that journey. We're just focused on creating a safe space for women, but also creating a safe space for us to share and to be vulnerable and help others while they're on their journey is there a particular reason why you wanted to create this podcast I think

SPEAKER_01 7:24

for me a lot of what you said was I think too, this space is so important to me because we shouldn't have to do it all alone. We shouldn't have to try to find all the answers for every problem or situation that comes up. But a lot of us feel like we have to. And this is important to me because I think that I want women to understand that they do deserve to show up as they are. to be heard, to feel seen and trust that what they need matters too, not just have to just focus on the needs of the people that they care about, but their needs matter too. And if we could share some of our experiences, personal and professional experiences, I know that they will take away some really practical tools that can help them to begin to trust themselves again.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

Yeah. And I want you all to know that like, We, we are going to be honest. Like there is no sugar. It's, it's no pretending as if we have it all together because we don't. A lot of our conversations are like, girl, we're hanging on by the thread of his garment. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. We're hanging on. We're, we're trying to figure all of this out too, as we occupy so many roles as mothers, as business owners, as therapists, as wives, daughters, friends, all of that. And so we just want you to know that we are on a journey with you as well. And we're learning how to trust ourselves and trust this process. So even with that being said, I think it would be great for us just to define what it means to like trust the journey, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:23

So for me, trusting your journey means that I am not going to try to perfect my journey. I am not going to try to compare my journey to someone else's. And even though I'm not going to know every single step I should take, every direction I should go in, I'm going to accept that Well, I'm just going to accept that, that it's going to turn out to be the best thing for me when the end comes, whatever the end means, right? Whether it be accomplishing a certain goal I set for myself and my business and my personal life financially or anything like that until I take my final breath, right? Because I know I have a purpose here in life. So I'm trusting that I'm going to have the resources or the tools to do the best I can do with the cards I'm dealt. For me, that means relying on my faith and my values. If I don't have clarity about what my values are, what's important to me, I'm just going to be wandering aimlessly. And it is really difficult to trust yourself when you are not clear about what's important to you. Now, that may change or it will change throughout the different seasons of life. And over the years, I've learned to accept that. I may not always be okay with it, but I also recognize that at the end of the day, I am always okay. I have more than what I need. Do I always feel the most confident? No. Do I always feel the most hopeful? No. And I also know just because I don't feel confident, just because I don't have a whole lot of hope, depending on the circumstance, I'm trusting that God's got me. And because of that, I'm going to be okay.

SPEAKER_00 11:25

Yeah. I mean, I think so much of what you described and used as your definition aligns so much with how I view the process of just like trusting the journey. I truly believe it's a process of just like having faith, even when the path isn't clear or the destination just seems like it's so far away. I have learned that it's all about just like recognizing my experience, even in the joyful or the challenging times I'm starting to understand that that is a vital part of my growth. I mean, it's just like with each twist and turn, it kind of helps me learn more about myself. I am noticing that I grow with my resilience. It really brings me closer to like my authentic self, but it's more so in a way of like trusting the journey is truly, and I say this all the time, is truly an act of like self-love because it means that like you're treating yourself with like, compassion. You're being a little more understanding that failures is just an opportunity for us to grow. And I know that even on the days when I'm feeling lost or overwhelmed, it may be exactly where I need to be. Like it may be the steps that, you know, I'm taken to become maybe stronger or wiser or even just love that different version of myself. So it truly, it really is like a journey. It's a process. It's not something that we can jump into overnight and I think oftentimes that is one of the challenges that we probably see the most when we are engaging in conversations with just like other women, with clients, even with ourselves. It's just kind of like, we want the journey to happen like this. We want it to happen overnight. And when it does not happen overnight, it's something that we're often like, well, let me just step away. I'm just going to give up. I'm going to throw in the towel because I don't know how much longer I can deal with this. I don't know where to go from here. Do you feel like there is a challenge that you, maybe you notice or you see when you think about what it means for like women to trust themselves?

SPEAKER_01 14:17

I think that one of, there's many challenges. Yeah. I think one of the hardest things for women is learning to trust their own decisions without second guessing themselves or trying to get approval from everyone else. Right. Um, I remember one of the trainings I did, and I shared this with a client this week. One of the trainings I did, we learned about the acronym WAIT. Why am I talking? In the context, of course, as clinicians, we know it's helpful and best practice to let the client share what they need to share to process their thoughts and feelings and to wait before we share or offer insight because we need it to be helpful. We don't want to overshare our personal stuff. We want the experience to be as therapeutic as possible. I think I know that that can apply in our personal lives for those of us who feel like we have to go to everyone's Oh, yeah. Before we can make a decision about what color to dye our hair, about where we go on a vacation, about a conference. Should I leave my job? Should I leave the job? Should I leave the man? Whatever the thing is, sometimes we don't consider a couple of things. Sometimes we don't consider that we know what's best for ourselves. And Sometimes we don't consider that we should be seeking wise counsel. Right. So waiting. Right. Stopping. Pause. Breathe. Think about what it is you really think and feel. Pray first. Ideally, that would be the first step. But, you know, everyone's relationship with God is their own. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So however you arrive at your decision, stand in it. Right. I think. that part of why that's hard to do is if we've experienced a lot of disappointment.

SPEAKER_00 16:23

If you've been exposed to a lot of trauma, especially in your childhood and especially even in adulthood, the emotional trauma that so many people experience, it's truly hard for them to make a decision. I think that we do have to acknowledge that because I know that someone may be listening to this episode and like, okay, well, it's not as easy as just like drop down in your breath and breathe and I have all of these extra things that are coming up for me. And that is a hundred percent true. Like, yes, I do want you to be aware of your experiences. I want you to be able to acknowledge them. And yes, As you acknowledge them, please don't feel like that should be the determining factor of you moving forward into this process. Oh, you mean the fear? Yes, the fear.

SPEAKER_01 17:22

Yeah. And the fear doesn't just come up when you have to make a big decision. I can think about times where I've had conversations with people and later I'm like, oh, maybe I shouldn't have said that. I felt like I had to share. I felt like I had to give feedback or say something when I could have just listened or I didn't really have to put them in all my business like I thought I needed to. Lots of things. There's a lot to unpack with this, but I really do feel like those of us who struggle with second guessing ourselves or needing approval from other people um you are in the right you're in the right place you're in the right space for getting um the best support yes that's the best way i can put it and also honest support we're not going to sugarcoat No.

SPEAKER_00 18:18

And we still love you deeply. We still love you deeply, but we're not going to sugarcoat it.

SPEAKER_01 18:24

What do you think about, so if one of the biggest things or one of the biggest challenges that a lot of women face, I feel like is just the second guessing ourselves and needing approval. How do you think, or do you think that can look different in like different seasons of your life? For example, as when you were a single woman, unmarried woman, or even when you were married and didn't have children, do you feel like maybe you tend to second guess yourself more now that you're a mom versus before you became a parent?

SPEAKER_00 18:57

Yes, I do. I honestly do. Especially when it comes to like decisions related to like maybe work stuff or business stuff or just like Hey, do you think I should do this? Like if an opportunity, for example, an opportunity presented itself to me a few weeks ago and I was like, oh, my God, I could maybe do that sometimes because I kind of miss that work. So I can and then like. As the conversation kept happening, I was like, wait, should I do this? I'm not going to lie. I found myself asking certain people, what would you do? What would you think about this? I love that you said that. In that moment, seriously, on my way to the gym one morning, I was like, kind of having my moment with God, like I normally do on my drive to the gym. And I'm like, why did I go to all those people just to ask them something that I already knew the answer to, because this wasn't something that, you know, like you align for me. And it's not to say that that is always going to be the case. It was just simply, I ain't need to go to 50,000 people just to get the answer I already knew. But I think it's also just like, a creature of habit now because I was so used to getting other people's opinions and not so much of because I only wanted their approval. It was just like, oh, aren't we supposed to do that? Aren't we supposed to tell my

SPEAKER_01 20:29

friends? That's part of the relationship. That's how you stay connected. That's what friends do. Except recently dealing with some issues with my daughter and school and things and some, and I did talk to a couple of my other friends who have been moms longer than me. So I value their opinion really highly because I, to me, they, they don't know better than me as far as my kid is concerned, but they've had experiences with, they had more experience. Yeah. So of course I'm going to go to them and you know, We all have friends who show up different and we show up different for our friends too. And so I have a friend who's going to pray and be really very firm, but professional and spiritual advice. And then I got another friend who's like, when we ride, we're not going to do this. Right. Sometimes if I have, when I've prayed about something and I have some peace about it, when you share with another person, depending on which friend it is, now you all keyed up again because now they have, right? And I was, I thought I was okay, but maybe I'm not really now. I'm not okay because I'm not okay. Or is it because of the council? I'm absorbing other people's

SPEAKER_00 21:55

energy, right?

SPEAKER_01 21:57

Yes. And so, And that has nothing to do with the quality of the friendship. The friendship is still an amazing friend, but energy, the energy we transfer to each other is a real thing. So sometimes we do have to wait. I think though, to your point that does sometimes you feel, I don't know if it's guilt, but you do feel something because it's like, I got this thing happening and I didn't tell my friends. Yeah. What does that say about me or what are they going to think? How are they going to feel?

SPEAKER_00 22:28

Yeah. Yeah, no, that is, that is so true. And I think here is how I have been navigating that piece. Like it is okay for me to share certain information with my friends after I have worked through it with myself. maybe start with you first maybe make you the friend that you tell so that could be the waiting part that could be sitting with it within yourself that could be praying it could be whatever your process is but you have more of these conversations with yourself whether that's through journaling where you're writing it out where you're processing many different things that could be through creating a voice note whatever it is but start having the conversation with you and then invite the right people into your next process.

SPEAKER_01 23:35

I don't think it's too much to consider which people in your life you should invite into that process. We have friends for different seasons, during different seasons in our life, and for different reasons. Every person in your life serves or shows up for you in different ways or serves a different role. And I mean, of course we can get into that another time, but I also think, yes, the journaling is helpful in just asking yourself, where do I need to learn to trust myself again? Maybe I learn if that feels like too much pressure, maybe just practice.

SPEAKER_00 24:14

Yes. Practice in small ways. I mean, I would even like, you know, and this may sound small, but sometimes, um, I struggle with like picking where I want to eat. I rely on other people to pick it, although I may have something that I have a taste for. So how I'm starting to also work through that process of just trusting myself and what I want more, I'm starting to say, no, girl, what do you want to eat? It may seem like that is a small thing, but I'm hoping that you all see it doesn't have to be a big decision around like, should I buy this house? Should I buy this car? It can be something as simple as like, Hey, where do you want to go eat today? Hey, how do you want your hair? How do you want your hair to be laid? What type of makeup do you want? You know, some of those small things just so you can get in the habit of like checking in with yourself before you check in with others.

SPEAKER_01 25:19

Yeah. I like that. Especially the eating thing. I think our husbands would appreciate that too.

SPEAKER_00 25:25

Yeah.

UNKNOWN 25:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:26

But you know, this about us, though, you know, this is about us. us knowing that what we already want and not maybe look into them for approval. It's not that they won't support you. It's not that they won't give you words of encouragement, but maybe they're just like, hey, sis, you got it. You can do it. Say what you want. Yeah. Like trust yourself. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:15

Yeah. It's okay if you don't get it all right. It's okay if you don't have it all figured out. None of us do. We're all trying to do life and we're just trying to make the best out of sometimes not the best circumstances. So our goal is to just equip you with some resources. Sometimes those resources are not tangible. Sometimes they are internal. Doing the work It's hard, which is why a lot of people don't want to do it. But it's not impossible. It is not impossible to do. It is not impossible to build self-trust. Even if you've experienced disappointment, heartache, even if things didn't go the way you hoped they would, or even the way that you worked really hard and planned for them to turn out.

SPEAKER_00 27:09

It's

SPEAKER_01 27:09

okay. We want to help you to recognize that you can use all of the life lessons and experiences to grow into the woman you were created to become.

SPEAKER_00 27:20

Yes, I agree. So we have this thing where we are hosting like fuel for the road ahead. So we will always drop some type of gem, whether it is a journal prompt, a moment of reflection. It may be an affirmation. It may be a quote. Whatever it is to help you all get through until the next episode or even just to process the things that we have shared in the episode that we are recording for the week. And so we're going to do a prompt this week. And the prompt for this week will be, where in my life do I need to trust myself more? So that means... over the next week or two, and it can be longer than this, we really want you to sit down and think through where in your life do you need to trust yourself a little bit more? And a small step that you can take following that would be just to take a moment to acknowledge one decision that you've made that brought you peace, no matter how small. So you know how I mentioned like the food thing and picking out my meal? That's a small step, but it brought me peace because I didn't have to wait for someone else to decide what I wanted to eat. I didn't have to feel like I was going back and forth in conversation. I want you to think of, or we want you to think of like one small thing that you have decided to do that has brought you some peace. And of course, we would love for you all to share that with us. In the show notes, we will have just like the reflection question again, but we'll also have a way that you all can connect with us, whether that's through social media or sending us an email, just to let us know what you're actually like doing as your small step for the week so that we can celebrate you. If you have any questions or anything that you will want us to talk about as it relates to just like trusting your journey, share with us in that email as well, because we look forward to recording more episodes and having more conversations around just some of the challenges that we face as women and how we're learning to trust the journey.

SPEAKER_01 29:51

So thank you all so much for listening. We don't take this for granted. We know Know that your time is valuable. And with that said, we'll see you next time. Peace.

SPEAKER_00 30:00

That's it for today's conversation. We're so glad you joined us. If

SPEAKER_01 30:05

this episode spoke to you, we'd love for you to subscribe, share with a friend or leave us a review. It helps more women like you find this space.

SPEAKER_00 30:14

Join us next time for another honest conversation. Until then, take care of yourself and trust your journey.