In this raw and unfiltered episode of The Messy Middle, I’m pulling back the curtain on one of the most defining moments of my healing journey and why Inner Child Work became Key One in my Six Keys to Unfu*kwithable.

I’m talking about the truth-telling, throat-tightening, survival-trained younger me. The part of me who learned early to shrink, perform, stay quiet, and swallow every truth just to stay safe.

I share the deeply personal story of sitting in couples therapy with someone who was actively cheating on me, the gaslighting that nearly broke me, and the one painful moment that ended up becoming my turning point. What was meant to shame me became the spark that led to my biggest breakthrough, my life’s work, and the thousands of women I support today.

Inside this episode I walk you through:

• What the inner child actually is and why she drives so much of your relationship patterns
• Why betrayal hurts long before you have proof
• How emotionally neglectful childhoods shape the partners we choose
• The way abusive or emotionally immature people weaponize vulnerability
• The real reason you felt like a child in your adult relationship
• How your younger self has been warning you all along

And at the end, I guide you through a grounding somatic practice that helps you meet your own inner child the way I wish someone had met mine: gently, honestly, and without trying to fix her or dismiss what she needed.

If you’ve ever felt like a shell of yourself, wondered why you tolerated so much, or questioned whether you’re “just too much,” this episode is going to hit you right in the chest in the best possible way.

You’re not broken. You’re rebuilding. One felt truth at a time. Take a breath, tune in, and come meet the part of you that’s been fighting for you all along.

📩 Send in YOUR questions and get them answered on the podcast!

📢 Get a Laster Coaching call for only $150. A 45-minute session to get to know me, experience my approach, and receive a personalized plan to kickstart your healing journey. Perfect for testing the waters before diving deeper.

🎬 Watch Unfu*kwithable Boundaries Masterclass for FREE. Learn how setting clear boundaries can change your life for good and where to start!

📝 Get the Somatic Keys Course. Learn how to recognize your signals, regulate your responses, and reclaim your nervous system as a place of truth.

In this episode of The Messy Middle, I’m diving into the question I get asked with equal parts fear, dread, and heartbreak: Will this always happen to me?

If you’ve ever whispered that to yourself after surviving narcissistic or high-control dynamics, you’re not alone. And no, you’re not cursed, broken, or doomed to attract the same person in a different body for the rest of your life. What you are is a human being who learned survival in a world that normalizes manipulation, misogyny, and emotional labor piled onto your shoulders.

In this episode, I break down what’s really happening underneath that fear.

I talk about how manipulative people actually operate, the early “tests” they run to see how much they can get away with, and how your body can confuse familiarity with safety. I unpack why chemistry isn’t destiny, why repetition isn’t sabotage, and how your nervous system is simply trying to finish an unfinished story.

We get into everything from:

• Why you’re not a narcissist magnet
• How conditioning sets you up to tolerate too muc
• The modern rebrand of misogyny and why it matters
• Why early red flags feel comforting if chaos was once your normal
• How healing shifts your entire signal
• Dating as a social experiment

Most importantly, I walk you through how to rebuild self-trust so deeply that coercive people can’t hook into you anymore.

When your safety lives inside you, you get to choose differently, walk away sooner, and stand steadier in your feet than you ever have before.

This isn’t about avoiding life. It’s about building a life your nervous system can actually thrive in. A life that feels like coming home to yourself.

And no… this won’t always happen to you.

Let’s talk about why.

📩 Send in YOUR questions and get them answered on the podcast!

📢 Get a Laster Coaching call for only $150. A 45-minute session to get to know me, experience my approach, and receive a personalized plan to kickstart your healing journey. Perfect for testing the waters before diving deeper.

🎬 Watch Unfu*kwithable Boundaries Masterclass for FREE. Learn how setting clear boundaries can change your life for good and where to start!

📝 Get the Somatic Keys Course. Learn how to recognize your signals, regulate your responses, and reclaim your nervous system as a place of truth.

If you’ve ever asked yourself, “Why did I stay so long?” after an abusive or controlling relationship — this one’s for you.

In this raw, unfiltered episode, we break down the real reasons survivors stay — and spoiler alert: it’s not because you’re weak, naïve, or broken. It’s because your nervous system, your hope, your history, and a masterclass in manipulation were all working against you.

We unpack the shame hidden in that question, the biochemical addiction of intermittent affection, and how childhood wounds, conditioning, and culture keep so many women loyal to chaos disguised as love. She dives into how “reactive abuse” isn’t abuse at all — it’s your body trying to save you — and why your staying was actually your system fighting for safety in the only way it knew how.

This episode is both a gut punch and a hug. You’ll walk away understanding that you didn’t “waste years.” You were gathering data. You loved deeply. You hoped fiercely. And now, you see.

💔 Trigger warning: This episode discusses emotional and psychological abuse, trauma responses, and recovery.

📩 Send in YOUR questions and get them answered on the podcast!

📢 Get a Laster Coaching call for only $150. A 45-minute session to get to know me, experience my approach, and receive a personalized plan to kickstart your healing journey. Perfect for testing the waters before diving deeper.

🎬 Watch Unfu*kwithable Boundaries Masterclass for FREE. Learn how setting clear boundaries can change your life for good and where to start!

📝 Get the Somatic Keys Course. Learn how to recognize your signals, regulate your responses, and reclaim your nervous system as a place of truth.

In this episode of The Messy Middle, we tackle one of the biggest, most painful questions almost every survivor of narcissistic or emotionally abusive relationships eventually asks: How did I not see it?

Spoiler alert: it’s not because you’re naive, dumb, gullible, or any of the garbage your inner critic might fling at you.

I break down exactly why intelligent, empathetic, emotionally aware women end up in these relationships, why the early love bombing feels intoxicating instead of suspicious, and how your nervous system, childhood conditioning, and craving for genuine connection all play a role in overriding those early intuitive nudges.

You’ll hear:

• Why charm is not a personality trait but a manipulation tactic
• How narcissistic partners gather “intel” early on and weaponize it later
• Why your nervous system will often choose the familiar over the healthy
• The real reason you cling to denial longer than you think
• How grief shows up when the truth finally lands
• Why “safe” partners can feel boring or wrong
• How to start rebuilding trust in your intuition without fear

If you’ve ever tortured yourself with “I should have known better,” this episode will feel like a deep exhale. You’ll understand the psychology, the biology, the conditioning and the truth behind why you didn’t see it… and why none of it was your fault.

📩 Send in YOUR questions and get them answered on the podcast!

📢 Get a Laster Coaching call for only $150. A 45-minute session to get to know me, experience my approach, and receive a personalized plan to kickstart your healing journey. Perfect for testing the waters before diving deeper.

🎬 Watch Unfu*kwithable Boundaries Masterclass for FREE. Learn how setting clear boundaries can change your life for good and where to start!

📝 Get the Somatic Keys Course. Learn how to recognize your signals, regulate your responses, and reclaim your nervous system as a place of truth.

In these first three episodes, I’m tackling the three questions I’ve been asked more than anything else.

After almost a decade and a half in practice and well over 10,000 hours with clients, these questions come up again and again in different forms. And if you’re at the beginning of this healing journey, or even a little further along but still wrestling with these thoughts, I think you’ll find a lot of clarity here.

Q1: How did I not see this sooner? I’m breaking down what narcissistic abuse actually feels like from the inside. How it messes with your memory, perception, and self-trust. The gaslighting, the manipulation, the subtle erosion of your reality, the way these people choose you, and even what’s happening in your brain throughout all of it.

Q2: Why did it take me so long to leave? Spoiler: it has nothing to do with weakness and everything to do with internalized programming, trauma responses, and relational conditioning that started long before the relationship itself. I’ll unpack the myth and the total garbage behind “Why don’t you just leave?” and explore the cycles, systems, and childhood dynamics that make this pattern so hard to recognize when you’re in it.

Q3: Will this always happen to me? We’ll talk about rebuilding self-trust, interrupting the shame loop, and why it feels like you keep attracting the same person with a different face. I’ll walk you through how to retrain your nervous system, what real safety actually feels like, and why healthy dynamics can feel weird or even boring at first.

This three-episode intro is designed to give you grounding, clarity, and a sense of direction as you move forward. Stick with me. We’re going much deeper from here, but I wanted to start with the questions I know so many of you are carrying. If you need these answers, these episodes are for you.

📩 Send in YOUR questions and get them answered on the podcast!

📢 Get a Laster Coaching call for only $150. A 45-minute session to get to know me, experience my approach, and receive a personalized plan to kickstart your healing journey. Perfect for testing the waters before diving deeper.

🎬 Watch Unfu*kwithable Boundaries Masterclass for FREE. Learn how setting clear boundaries can change your life for good and where to start!

📝 Get the Somatic Keys Course. Learn how to recognize your signals, regulate your responses, and reclaim your nervous system as a place of truth.

Welcome to The Messy Middle — the podcast for women finding their way through the raw, confusing, and often lonely aftermath of narcissistic and emotional abuse.

I’m Erika Leon, Trauma-Informed Abuse Recovery Coach, mom of five, and creator of The 6 Keys to Unfu*kwithable.

If you’ve ever felt like you’re piecing yourself back together, questioning everything, and trying to remember who the f*ck you were before someone tried to erase you - you’re in the right place.

In this first episode, I share a crumb of my own story: the devastating double betrayal that blew up my life and ultimately became the start of my freedom.

From discovering my ex-husband’s affair with my 'best friend', to navigating the nightmare of family courts, systemic abuse, and total life collapse... it’s been one hell of a ride.

But it’s also what led me to my mission today: helping people reclaim their voices, rebuild their confidence, and rise the f*ck up after abuse.

Through unfiltered conversations, listener questions, client stories, and a healthy dose of righteous rage, we’ll explore the deeper conditioning that keeps women stuck — and how to dismantle it piece by piece. Expect truth bombs, laughter, healing, feminism, and the occasional f-bomb (because let’s be real).

Whether you’re still in survival mode or ready to feel bold and unfu*kwithable again, this is your space to learn, laugh, cry, and rise.

📩 Send in YOUR questions and get them answered on the podcast!

📢 Get a Laster Coaching call for only $150. A 45-minute session to get to know me, experience my approach, and receive a personalized plan to kickstart your healing journey. Perfect for testing the waters before diving deeper.

🎬 Watch Unfu*kwithable Boundaries Masterclass for FREE. Learn how setting clear boundaries can change your life for good and where to start!

📝 Get the Somatic Keys Course. Learn how to recognize your signals, regulate your responses, and reclaim your nervous system as a place of truth.