051 - Jennifer Racioppi: Resilience and Self-Liberation
Welcome, dear listeners. Today I’m honored to welcome my friend Jennifer Racioppi back to the podcast.
Jennifer is a mentor, speaker, astrologer and author of Cosmic Health. She is also a certified Duke Integrative Medicine Health Coach specializing in positive psychology, hormonal health, and behavior change.
Together, we discuss two of her threshold moments — the first, as a cancer survivor in her youth, and the other as a woman working through the complex aftermath of marital betrayal.
Join us to hear her profound insights into reclaiming identity, prioritizing healing, and channeling growth amidst life's challenges.
We also discuss:
Making room for hard feelings after survival
Redefining love and grief in the wake of divorce
Embracing feminine rhythms and lunar cycle practice
Connect with Sarah
Connect with Jennifer
Episode Transcript
Sarah Tacy [00:00:05]
Hello welcome, I'm Sarah Tacy and this is Threshold Moments, the podcast where guests and I share stories about the process of updating into truer versions of ourselves. The path is unknown and the pull feels real. Together we share our grief, laughter, love and life saving tools. Join us. When I first started my podcast, I invited on some guests that many of them I knew well.
Sarah Tacy [00:00:47]
Many of them had a lot of experience of speaking, whether on podcast or on stages or in trainings. And Jennifer Racioppi and I had some history together and some time together. And we began about a year ago meeting once a week to check in with one another. And it was really interesting. I was waiting for the right impulse, for the what felt like right timing to ask if she would come on.
Sarah Tacy [00:01:19]
And now was the time. Now was the time where there was like just the right orientation and perhaps even like just the right distance from the last threshold and the place where she is at now and even the place where it's like, oh, I'm ready to say hello to the public. And a new website is launched and the new version of her book is out. And it just seemed like perfect timing. And the gift of having her here is that she is a woman who is always on the self awakening journey.
Sarah Tacy [00:01:56]
That means daily, weekly, there will be thresholds and there will be upgrades and there will be challenges to the system. But she offers us in this podcast two major thresholds going all the way back to being a teenager and overcoming cancer. And she brings up, and this might be a little bit of the trigger warning part of what could happen for many people or in general with surgery, that even when it goes well and is life saving, that there can be some trauma responses in the body. And there is not a lot in Western medicine, especially at that time that would address the after. It would just say, oh, we fixed the thing.
Sarah Tacy [00:02:40]
You're fine, you're great. Be thankful. And so she takes us through the threshold of like, wow, I really don't feel fine. And I giggle when she was like, it was in the 90s, there was no Internet. So I'm going to the library.
Sarah Tacy [00:02:54]
I'm using microfiche. I'm like, Oh my gosh. And like when you actually had to travel to places in the country where there was greater density of holistic practitioners or alternative methods and the education was really like a boots to the ground. I was so inspired by what I heard. I was reminded of certain things, of even the way how we think that trauma looks one way and we think that we then have to verbalize things and process.
Sarah Tacy [00:03:24]
And she gives us so many examples of how rhythmic movement outside was such good medicine without even, you know, researching and finding it. But just a reminder to us that rhythmic movement outside can be exactly what our bodies need to help us move through at a hard time. The second-half of the podcast, we talk about betrayal. And this was her more recent large threshold. The courage to contract back into oneself, to really do the deep dive, to begin to uncouple and unwind.
Sarah Tacy [00:04:05]
And in the process, find out who am I now? What parts of myself have I not seen while in that dynamic? There's so much here about resilience and self liberation and growth of capacity and hope. And I just think this is a podcast that you could share with a friend or the family member who perhaps has gone through something similar. Whether it's overcoming a physical disease or injury and taking a multi dimensional approach.
Sarah Tacy [00:04:37]
Whether it is a marriage that did not go in the trajectory that you were hoping for and that you are finding who you are in the middle of it in a new place. There again is just so many gems and so much honesty, vulnerability and strength. Without further ado, Jennifer Astiobe, welcome to Threshold Moments. Today we have with us Jennifer Rasiopi. And as my listeners know, I do love to put together a bio and I always welcome my guest to correct me or update or alter anything I say.
Sarah Tacy [00:05:23]
But here's what I have. Jennifer Racioppi is a mentor and coach, speaker, astrologer, and author of Cosmic Health. She is a certified Duke Integrative Medicine Health coach specializing in positive psychology, hormonal health and behavior change. Jen is a trained and practicing astrologer. She can be seen on the Today Show with Hoda and Jen.
Sarah Tacy [00:05:53]
No big deal. Or you could work with her as a mentor and coach where she uses planetary rhythms, science and spirituality to help her clients reach their purposes. Core Jen is a woman who is always ready to reflect on herself, the collective, and the cosmic. I have watched her respond to the rhythms and circumstances in her own life with humility and honesty. She has the capacity to appropriately contract and expand as needed.
Sarah Tacy [00:06:31]
She is a steady friend with a big heart and a wildly integrated and precise brain. I'm so happy and pleased and honored to have her here. And before we started, there was a line, she said. And it was something about this being a long time coming. And for me, that also talks a bit about who we are or who you are, which is kind of not rushing something to put something out really soon, but allowing it to come when it's meant to come. It talks to me about rhythms and right timing, which I think speak a lot to who you are. Welcome.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:07:15]
Well, hello, thank you so much for that really kind and wonderful introduction.
Sarah Tacy [00:07:19]
Yeah, I feel like this has been a long time coming. And again, in our free interview check in, we were going back to it being 2008. I remember it being pulled out. I feel like it was like a January. And I'm thinking about watching you open up our circle.
Sarah Tacy [00:07:43]
So with a mastermind, we're in Sarah Jenks's temple. And maybe the point that I would even make with this is I had already put you into a category that was to define like, oh, she's a really well known astrologer. And then you opened up with the four directions and I was like, Oh my God. Or is she a priestess? And then when we talked.
Sarah Tacy [00:08:06]
About business, it's like or a business coach. It was like the breath of which you can hold is really incredible. And to give you something to speak off of more might be if you could tell the listeners a thing or two or maybe the story of this is a really big one to jump right into it. But your first big threshold, I'm thinking like what led you up to when we met? But your first threshold that would cause you to be such a well-rounded human.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:08:39]
Well, thank you. I think you said 2008, but it was 2018.
Sarah Tacy [00:08:43]
2018 Thank you A.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:08:45]
Little bit more recent also, you know, now we're talking about six years ago. So there is an adequate depth there. You know, I mean, I think I had a lot of thresholds growing up as anyone would or does, but I would say that the biggest threshold I crossed was with my cancer journey when I was 18 and 19 years old. That was a threshold that I had never witnessed anyone else go through and nobody let me know what was happening. And I don't think it was because I purposefully let it, you know, slip their consciousness and telling me.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:09:20]
I just think they literally didn't know either because I had gynecological cancer, ovarian issues, endometrial issues that led me to be surgically post menopause at age 19. And if you can picture me at the time, I was sort of a like a punk rock teenager who was really into skateboarding and suddenly in the throes of trying to figure out why nothing felt good anymore, why I couldn't read and write like I used to, why I was having panic attacks. And albeit I was cured of cancer, my mental health was just completely decimated. Mostly because the cancer was a trauma. But the cure for cancer was a hysterectomy, A radical hysterectomy, which meant I had the removal of both ovaries.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:10:11]
I had had my left ovary removed the year before because it blew up, Literally blew up and erupted with a tumor. And then I had my right ovary removed with my uterus once I was diagnosed with cancer for the second time with endometrial cancer. And so it was a really abrupt landing into a very advanced gynecological situation where I didn't have natural hormones anymore. I mean, I knew I wouldn't get my period. I knew I couldn't get pregnant.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:10:41]
That was like obvious. But I didn't know what menopause was or that I was abruptly thrusted into the end result of a process that takes midlife women many years to cross. And even then, when they do, it's challenging. Yeah. So I was sort of this like outgoing girl who was pretty good with school and good with socializing and loved to push the edges, what I was capable of.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:11:15]
And I was in this deep contraction at a time when all my peers were like expanding. They were like going to party, then thriving socially and academically. And I had no freaking clue what was going on with me. And it took me a long time, I'd say years and years to take myself out of that. But after I had knocked on all the established medical doors that one would knock on to figure out what the hell was wrong with me, and I was just given antidepressants and I knew that that wasn't solving the problem, I went on a fierce journey to learn.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:11:55]
And because it was the 90s and the Internet had just begun and it wasn't like I could Google what are these symptoms and what am I going through? There were no Wellness blogs. The blogosphere had yet to be conceivable and exists. Obviously podcasts would be multiple decades before something like this was possible. So I was, you know, going to the library with like microfiche research.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:12:22]
Wow. And in all sorts of weird rooms at Barnes and Noble and various bookstore's. And I just realized that like I had to actually put boots on ground. So I started traveling and part of that journey moved me to California where there was a big, rich, deep alternative medicine scene and I could meet people and talk to people and start networking and asking questions IRL. And that's how it really all started that. But that was a huge threshold.
Sarah Tacy [00:12:54]
When you moved to California, did you study with Peter Levine?
Jennifer Racioppi [00:12:59]
No, I never studied with Peter Levine. That was a couple years later. So when I was 19, I moved to San Diego. I started practicing yoga there, getting chiropractic care, learning about juicing. This is how little I knew.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:13:15]
So a very common menopause symptom is vaginal dryness. And I had, so I mean, not to get just raw and real, I had so much vaginal dryness and I didn't understand what it was. So I would like go to these health food stores and read about them like, oh, I had candida. So I learned about candida cleanses. I did so much candida cleansing all later realized it didn't solve the problem.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:13:36]
And again, it would be years until I realized like, oh, there are estrogen creams you could use that would alleviate this, but I didn't know it was an estrogen deficiency problem. So I started out in San Diego. From San Diego, I moved to Tahoe. From Tahoe I moved to San Francisco where I went to San Francisco State University. I had dropped out of college to move to California.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:13:59]
So I was going back to finish my bachelor's after about two years of traveling and studying in non traditional ways. Some college classes here and there, but nothing substantial or I wasn't enrolled in like a program. And Peter Levine was one of the first people that helped me make sense of what my body had gone through. So I was a social science English, I had an English major with creative writing and then a social science minor. And there was a holistic health program at San Francisco State University.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:14:37]
You could actually get a degree in holistic health and I considered it, but I was really passionate about writing and, and really environmental justice, which I saw through the lens of social sciences. So that was my focus. But I remembered it was like, oh, I could take holistic health classes as you know, just a class and they had a really cool holistic health department and they'd bring in speakers. And it was my first semester junior year. So this was 2001 then I hadn't gone back to college.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:15:05]
I was like, right after 911, it happened. And the first speaker that I went to, which was I think the first one of that year, was Peter Levine, and he talked brilliantly about trauma. Again, I had no idea what trauma was. I had no idea that I had gone through trauma. But I remember him showing videos of animals in the wild after they almost die and how they shake it off and how he's learned that humans don't shake it off, but he's developed this protocols called somatic experiencing that people who've gone through trauma could really benefit from.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:15:45]
And I was just like, Oh my God, this guy is like, is he reading my mind? How does he know all this stuff? So I, after the Q&A with him, haunted him down. I mean, he was still in front of the class, but I just stood in there and waited for him to have time for me. And I just told him what I was going through and the amount of surgeries I had had because I had many surgeries with my cancer journey.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:16:07]
And he said, oh, yeah, this is something that somatic experiencing could definitely treat. And he pointed me in the direction of a somatic experiencing practitioner, several of them. And I went and I interviewed them. One was a clinical licensed social worker. And I ended up working with her for two years doing somatic experiencing.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:16:27]
And that was the extent of my interactions with Peter Levine. But you know, meeting him was like an Angel dropping in my life because he helped me understand that my body had gone through trauma.
Sarah Tacy [00:16:40]
I mean, it's still for me as I read his work, and I think you adequately described who he is. I might then say, oh, yeah, this is trauma. But when he talks about the impact of surgeries, even if we elect to do them and even if they save our lives. So when you were telling your story about who you were before your surgeries, that may have been life saving and then the emotional state after, which obviously there was a whole hormonal element that was happening too. I think his work is pretty brilliant.
Sarah Tacy [00:17:15]
Also pointing out the trauma of surgery, how it can leave us a different person after, even when it's elected and life saving. That was mind blowing to me. I had never considered that. And I could look at a certain period of my life and go, oh, I could see that I could use some support.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:17:33]
The way that he described it to me was you weren't anesthetized and then cut into had organs removed, sewn back up, but through the anesthetization process, unable to respond, react or discharge any of the intensities of the assault on the body that one goes through when they go under a knife of any kind. And then that's just latent and trapped in. And because I had repetitive surgeries and you know, obviously he wasn't speaking to the hormonal trauma of it all, but that was also a trauma induced by the surgeries. I heard a definition. I don't know who it's from.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:18:15]
So please forgive me, whoever it is that I'm not adequately quoting. But I really like the way they said this is a trauma is an event to our series of events in your life where afterwards, no matter how grand or small these series of events are, you begin to get worse rather than better. It's an event you don't recover from immediately. And in addition to not recovering from, there's a decline in well-being and thriving. And so that's like a really broad definition, but it just lands for me because a trauma could be, you know, he also talked a lot about car accidents. I'm like, yeah, definitely car accidents. But I mean, that's an obvious trauma, but like, I was OK.
Sarah Tacy [00:18:58]
I think that is the where we get confused about trauma was like, oh but I was OK or oh but that saved my life. And we still miss the elements of really being with our body. Like, what was that like for our body if we slow the momentum down and we, yeah, did we adequately have the motions, the discharges that were supposed to be had? And I think for most of us, it's just like, if I'm alive and I'm OK, and it's just interesting to see how patterns can get stuck with us that aren't useful and can add up cumulatively over time. So that even if it seems like the next day you were OK or but there's, you know, there's work that we could do to help release ourselves.
Sarah Tacy [00:19:42]
And I know that wasn't necessarily the direction of this podcast, but I'm glad we stepped into that a little bit because I feel like they're probably many people listening who could really tap into that part of your story too and think, Oh, yeah, I remember having a procedure where there was a before and the after. And over time of the after there was a different type of like, it could be an emotional decline even if the physical part seems healed.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:20:09]
Yeah, and I will also just add to that that after I was cured from cancer, my mom and this isn't at all associated my mom, she did the best she could. But like my mom and many people in my community were like you've survived cancer, you know, like be grateful, you know, like you are OK. Like there were so many people who were celebrating for me, but for me, I couldn't access the feelings of joy. Like I didn't feel OK. And I think that there's, you know, it's is where the conversation on like toxic positivity or, you know, just rushing to the good in a situation can sometimes backlash because, you know, you can internalize that is like, well, I survived the car wreck. Somebody else wouldn't have survived the car wreck. I should be grateful. Like I of course I'm OK. I have it all together. Like I'm OK and I'm fine.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:21:05]
And it's actually like my situations have always just been. I'm so sensitive and my body is so sensitive that I don't really have a choice. Like I can't really just like phone it in and be like, yeah, I'm fine. You know, I have like big responses to things, but I, I think that we all have different ways that our bodies talk to us and we also have different ways in our minds talk to us. And when the dominant voices, it was like you've survived, you beat the odds.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:21:33]
You, you know, you have many good years ahead of you. It could have been way worse. Be grateful. It's almost easier to want to assume that there's no trauma when in fact the body's telling a different story.
Sarah Tacy [00:21:47]
And it feels like it would be easier that my experiences so much of the time, even though I was like, the body is wise. It's your no BSG. PS: That there are so many times that I'm like, I wish it could be as easy as just following what my mind is saying, like, oh, just get over that and move on and do this and that. And this makes sense. And nothing is personal.
Sarah Tacy [00:22:08]
And my mind might really get it. And my body is like, no, no, we're not. We're not finished with this yet. And I'm like, damn it. But the body, yeah, like, really giving the body the time and the resources it needs.
Sarah Tacy [00:22:22]
The body moves at a different pace than our modern society does. And we don't have a lot of rituals in place to be with that. We are more trying to stay in pace with society so we don't fall behind. I wasn't planning on going here from there, but maybe this would tie in too, which is. I wanted to ask you about ritual, but also about how the moon then came into your life.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:22:46]
Yeah, it was. Before I met Peter Levine, I had been living in Lake Tahoe, and Lake Tahoe was great for me because I was the ski instructor and I taught ski lessons at my job. And then on my days off, I snowboarded my *** off. And snowboarding was like just one of the best things I could have done because of the undulations, like the side to side, the rhythmic carving of a mountain. It was Tahoe.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:23:11] T
here was powder. It was like Bluebird days and a beautiful lake. And, you know, it was embodied. So it was like all I could really handle, you know, at this time, I couldn't. Sitting in a class wasn't working for me.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:23:21]
Like I had to be conquering things. And so that was great. And then the season ended and I had to pick my college, which was this thing I had been putting off now for a while. And like, it was time I had to go back to school. And I really just didn't know what to do.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:23:37]
I was panicked about it. So I went just serendipitously. It was in Tahoe City and I was getting, you know, some books at a new age shop. And I saw a tarot reader. And so I had her read my cards, but she just, like, laid my lifeout for me.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:23:51]
And she just said, like, the one thing you're missing is some sort of rhythm, like a female rhythm. And like, it was if she knew me, it was like wild like, and she was just a psychic intuitive. But so she did know me, but she, I never met this woman before in my life. And it turns out she was able to diagnose me in that setting as like being really out of touch with feminine rhythms, really needing to find a way to bring this rhythmicity back to my life. Like I was a real staunch tomboy at the time.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:24:21]
So there were some obvious clues about this. Not that being a tomboy is anything wrong. I fully champion that. It was also, though, that I was like really rejecting my body and rejecting things. Like, there was a lot of rejection going on.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:24:35]
It was a long conversation, but at the end of it was like, working with lunar cycles and rituals would really help you. And I was like, what the **** lady? Like who? Who are you and what are you talking about? But there was a lot of synchronicity in her paths crossing where she actually became a mentor to me.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:24:52]
And I worked with her for some time, maybe three years, where she trained me in secret lunar cycle practice where like, I'd go to her house, we'd do all sorts of things, or she gave me these rituals. And when I moved to San Francisco, we did a lot via the phone or I'd go visit her. You know, ritual isn't like a one and done. It's a practice. It's a way of life.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:25:13]
But it was a series of years that I began to work with her. Yeah. And she taught me about lunar phases, lunar rhythms, different rituals, how to work with the waxing moon versus the waning moon, the new moon versus the full moon. And I just apprenticed myself to her. There was also another teacher that came into my life who was a Vedic astrologer at that time named Freedom, who's still out there teaching.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:25:38]
He's amazing, by the way, you know, Cole. And he worked with me from an Ayurveda standpoint on syncing my life to lunar rhythms because that was indicated in my Vedic chart. And he was also my yoga teacher. So it's just, again, it was like a lot of different healing modalities all centered around the same thing around the same time, which is when I was most thirsty to heal. Like it had become the purpose of my existence at that point.
Sarah Tacy [00:26:06]
So I have a history with injury and then finding when I was highly injured and unable to do all the things I identified with. Finding my like having my first depression. And then really, you talked about the thirst, really having this like desire that just would not end. To find various outlets to help me weave my life back together and find out who I am when I'm not athletes, students, but also really hoping for a way out of pain. And through this process, I also had this vision, this dream, this desire that I would someday work with professional athletes.
Sarah Tacy [00:26:45]
Because I just really felt like I understood the mind body connection from an anatomical perspective, from a spiritual perspective, from a psychological perspective. I studied psychology and world religion. And then I was an athlete going through the things and I was in there with the athletes thinking like this is my dream job. And then into that mix of training the professional athletes I would get, you know, ACEO is 2008, actually 2008. And who might have a lot of anxiety because suddenly all the things in business and life have shifted.
Sarah Tacy [00:27:24]
And then have somebody who has chronic back pain or have someone who's having incredible nerve pain and they've lived at a pain clinic and they've had the surgeries. And I found within a year or two that I no longer wanted to work with the athletes, that I wanted to work with the people who had a Pebble. I, I called it like having a Pebble in your shoe. And maybe that's not my term. Maybe that's just a term.
Sarah Tacy [00:27:49]
It's like when people are no longer comfortable in their lives, they are thirsty for a new way. And people who are thirsty are going to be willing to try things on. And in my practice, it isn't like, oh, there you therefore you have to believe everything I say. But it's like, hey, let's get curious. Let's ask a lot of questions.
Sarah Tacy [00:28:10]
Let's reflect on your life physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. And there is something really, really potent about being thirsty for change and then oftentimes life transforming because I mean, in your case and in mine, it really, I would say, change the trajectory of where we're heading or perhaps like informed your career as you move forward.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:28:37]
Yeah, I mean the, the pressure to change has to be greater than the comfort of not changing in some situations, right? Like we have to not in all situations. You know, we can change because we want to. We can change because it's a good idea. We can change because it's time, right.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:28:56]
And often times the discomfort of where we are or the end of the road, sometimes roads just end and you're just like, I can't do this anymore. Come so great that we just are like, OK, I got to I got to start looking at this things differently. But often times change is like, it's just like a cosmic knowing that there's something more or something different, that you're just, you know, the inner voice gets louder and louder and you can't ignore it.
Sarah Tacy [00:29:25]
And going back to when we first met, so there was watching you hold ritual. And then I don't want to say hold ritual, but open space. And then there was a time where I was feeling highly vulnerable. And you made like made a point to pull me aside and just say, I'm so happy you're here. I don't know if you remember that we were walking back from.
Sarah Tacy [00:29:50]
We had just had lunch. It was again, a mastermind meeting and we had just had lunch by this really beautiful river. We had gone down to the water and we were about to walk to the car to go to a concert next. And you just like, yeah, you just said something really kind that touched my heart and it was really grounding for me to have your care and your steadiness when we were in that group together and at when you chose to step out. I remember just, I think I got on the phone, I was like, I just want you to know if you ever want to come back, please come back.
Sarah Tacy [00:30:30]
But also there's a part of me that's like, wow, she's so clear. I was in awe and appreciation of your clarity and also your courage to step away from something in response to, I don't know if capacity is the right word or just like life circumstances. And I don't know, you can kind of tune into at this moment if it feels like there's any part of that threshold you want to talk about or like the pulling out of certain things or going into certain things. I think this is around the time that your book is also coming out, Cosmic Health, which is a really big deal. Is there anything about that threshold you want to say? And if not totally fine, we can also kind of move on to where you are now.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:31:17]
I mean, I think that there's a couple of questions in there, right? I think there's like the clarity of knowing when it's time to go, right? Like and it's not. I remember being like really conflicted about that for a while because I loved the group and I loved our interactions and I loved just to sound selfish what I got out of it, which was **** *** support, amazing reflections and just being in a community of like minded people. It was just, you know, it's a sacrifice to leave.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:31:49]
But I also know that like when your body is telling you something to listen to it and that always just comes first for me. I think the second question in that invitation is, you know, do I want to share what was going on in my life around that time, which was also a different threshold altogether? And I'm happy to talk about that, which is, but I was waking up to the fact that my husband had betrayed me in my marriage. And yeah, there had been infidelity and I had to rethink my life from top down. And that was also happening around that time.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:32:27]
I believe it must have been. And that was just a reconfiguration of my sense of belonging across the board. And yeah, just a need to pull back and really tend to myself above and beyond, really feigning that I had the resources to do the same for others when my inner world was just so needy of my time and attention and true clarity of thought and presence for myself. I just didn't have that as much as I did prior to waking up to that fact that I had been both cheated on and lied to in my marriage. Took some time to figure that one out.
Sarah Tacy [00:33:12]
Yeah. And again, for me, just the I think, I don't want to say, I think that you think it's natural. And I'm not sure if it is to really go as inward. And I know for a lot there is just like there's no choice and I and I0 judgement of how anybody would choose to work with the emotions that are coming out or not, or like not work with them and use momentum. But I really watched you fully go in and in and in and in and like do the work.
Sarah Tacy [00:33:48]
And part of this for me, even having you come on here and have this come out in February, which for me is, or at least for the podcast right now, is about a variety of ways of what relational and sovereign health could look like, is finding out more about who you are as you unweave from something that had become so familiar. And I'm wondering if you're willing to say anything about what you found out on the journey of unweaving?
Jennifer Racioppi [00:34:26]
You know, just a fully presence the extent of, of what you're talking about. And what you witnessed me do is that I was in a marriage for at least 10 years at this time, over 10 years. And I had been with my partner for at least 15 years, maybe 16 years. And you know, infidelity is one of those things that is very common, extraordinarily common. It pretty much always comes with some sense of lying, like no one is outward like, hey, I'm cheating on you.
[00:35:00]
And like even in polyamorous dynamics, there can be cheating. And even in, you know, in the most open of marriages, there can be the ****** lives in in secrecy sometimes. And so it's really actually quite common for marriages to withstand some sort of betrayal and come back stronger at this time. This was like Esther Pearl had just put stated the affairs out. It was like really up in the ethers.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:35:25]
And I had to sit with that and I had to look at that and just say like, OK, what does this mean for me? What's the opportunity for my marriage and my partnership given this betrayal had happened? And you know, that's just so damn personal. And it is just so private and it is so tender and it is so raw. And the minute you come out of the closet as a woman who's been cheated on, there's a lot of opinions, you know, like, leave the *******.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:36:06]
You know, like, we all know. We've seen the shows, We've watched the movies. We've been part of the conversations. We have our own thinking about this. And I needed to make that decision for myself, by myself, with careful, judicious, kind and loving attention.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:36:27]
Now, does that mean I was kind and loving to my spouse at the time? Cliff notes, we ended our marriage. No, I was, you know, I went through all the emotions of being really hurt and feeling betrayed with the kindness I could muster and the kindness I did have and the kindness I didn't really betray. And I asked him not to betray as well. Was we had a really substantial relationship and we had a really substantial everything.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:36:56]
We had been together a long time. Our families were intertwined. We owned property together, we supported each other in business and career. And so we were a partnership. I asked him and I asked myself to really come to this as what?
Jennifer Racioppi [00:37:10]
No matter what we decide, if we decide to end the marriage, we decide to heal the marriage, that we come to it really consciously and do the work of sorting out what this means for us. Why did this happen? What are our options from here and how do we most want to proceed? Right? Like, not are we?
Jennifer Racioppi [00:37:29]
What are we most afraid of? Not what do we most want to protect? Not what does my wounded ego say? Not just what my mom say, my best friend, you know, what do we really say and how are we going to handle this as a couple? And that just required an enormous amount of privacy because it wasn't anyone else's problem.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:37:52]
And while I wanted feedback at certain times, and it was really important for me to have that feedback, it was also something, if I didn't know how I felt about it and if I didn't know how I wanted to hold it, if I didn't understand the pain it caused me, if I didn't even understand the history of the problem in my marriage, how was I going to understand how I felt about it? And then, you know, the decision to end the marriage was an entire subsequent unraveling of an intertwined identity with my husband and a finding my sovereignty again at a different phase and stage of my life. And damn, that was hot. But again, very private, extraordinarily personal and really, really, really worth it. And not because my ex and I are both on new, you know, our own individual paths.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:38:49]
We still are friends and family to the extent that we want to be in touch with one another. But we've really have ceased our relationship and gone in different directions. And we're both doing really well, but it took time and now years out from all that, I can look back and say like, damn, that was a Wrecking Ball that I never wanted that I sort of knew was always coming because of my chart set it, but I didn't know it was coming in my marriage. Lying to that, I knew that there was like a major change in a very painful set of years in my future. I had no idea that it was going to be a betrayal in my marriage with, by the way, one of someone I knew, like a friend in in our inner circle of friends.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:39:33]
And that was just wild to me. But it's, it's actually quite true that I say like really free at this moment in my life. And given how free I feel and given how much work I've done and where I stand with myself now, I'm actually grateful I went through it all. But this is years. Oh, that's a long story.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:39:59]
You've had the back, you know, door entrance into and have been with me through. But then you can attest it's been a long hard journey. But I really just say it like in total gratitude that like, yeah, sometimes we go through these thresholds that we don't want, we don't even think we need. But through that process of, I don't even know how you phrased it, the relational and the inner sovereign of like untangling that I have my capacity is like. Like it's never been before and my trust in myself is like it's never been before and I've had capacity and self trust for a really long time.
Sarah Tacy [00:40:37]
So two things. One, when you were talking about coming out as a woman who has been betrayed, I'm not sure I've ever considered the weight of dealing with everyone's opinions said out loud or kept to themselves. And knowing myself as I do, I would really have to mindfully navigate that the choices I make going forward are truly from my heart and my truth. And not because I would be embarrassed that somebody wouldn't think I was strong or pressure maybe from my spouse or just like all the various pressures that could be coming in. I'm not sure that that part was something I ever thought about as like an added weight. And in that I can also understand why it would then be a really personal journey so that that doesn't necessarily like it doesn't get to get as close to you.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:41:45]
I mean, listen, This is why people lie about these things. No shade thrown to people who aren't truthful about the fact that there has been infidelity in their marriage and they swept an affair under the carpet where, you know, it was a private matter that they handled on their own. And best friends, mother, sister, whoever that don't tell because my friend calls it the front page. When you're on the front page, like when something big goes on in your life, that's somewhat traumatic and there's a lot of shade and fraud or whatever the word is for when people are like side eyeing you and talking about you. When you're in the gossip, gossip categories, you're on the front page.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:42:21]
You're on the front page of like your friends and family's newspaper, right? Like the fictional newspaper, but you are the center and it's a story of disgrace, right? It's nothing short of a story of utter disgrace. The amount of backseat driving, quarterback coaching, opinion making, meaning making, deriving a sense of, oh, this is how she's handling it or I would have handled it that way. Or the amount of why don't you just burn it down?
Jennifer Racioppi [00:42:58]
I can't believe you're just not burning it down. How are you going to therapy? Or don't you think marriages that survive something like this are stronger And it speaks to your emotional capacity to hold nuance and heal and forgive and like, let's also save any woman awakening to this. It is every single emotion all at once at A10. It is anger, it is rage, it is love, it is sadness.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:43:24]
It is like for me, if you're fired at my ****** it was like thirst and the need to like assert myself. It was also like retracting and being like, I don't want to be near you. I can't stand you. It was like, how dare you? And it was like, why don't you tell me?
Jennifer Racioppi [00:43:40]
But here's the thing. It was all of it all at once, and it took a while to like, actually let myself calm down, to have like a sense of objectivity around it. These are the facts. This is the history, These are the choices. What do I want to do?
Jennifer Racioppi [00:44:00]
And then aside from that is like, you know, me. I'm like a crazy independent, financially savvy woman with her own career who's paid attention to my stuff, like my financial stuff, my working stuff. And at the same time a divorce or a marriage is it is a business like you do Co own things with this person. You could do share credit. You do have, you know, some intertwining joint finances. And so this whole thing about like, why don't you just leave them? It's like leave them and go where? You know, like if I leave my, that was one thing. I was like, I want my house. I left my house.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:44:45]
If I left my house, it's like abandonment of house. And then like the marital asset would go to him. So it's like, where are you going? You know, and then these are decisions you have to like seek legal counsel for and not your best friend who's fired up for you on the other line and just want to get out and like goes like, you know, stay with her for a while. They're like whatever.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:45:04]
And like, I guess that's what I want to say is when devastation hits and hits on that level, there's a level of objectivity and legal counsel that needs to happen that your friends and family, as much as they love you, are quite capable of because they too are triggered. They're meant for you. They feel like, oh, this happened to her, didn't happen to me. Hey, did you ever cheat on me? You know, it's like, and then it's just like all the, the, all the things that happened with and they love you. They want the best for you. It's all with great, great, great intention. It's just confusing.
Sarah Tacy [00:45:44]
Yeah, I hear a lot of stacking, like, yeah, to have anybody else's opinion. And then how that could add shame or guilt when you're already having 10 out of 10 emotions on every other category. And then I'm also hearing, and I, and I imagine this could be the same with a cancer journey or with an illness or a disease or if something traumatic has to help happen to someone's actual house where you're having all of the emotions. And while you're having all those high emotions, there's a stacking of, well, now you have to call insurance or now you have to call your lawyer or not. And like there's this really logistical part of your brain that's being asked from society.
Sarah Tacy [00:46:23]
Like, well, now you need to handle or even after someone passed it, now you need to handle all of these really logistical things and financial things while also being at your highest emotional peak. Or for some, it may be like going into a complete freeze and having to somehow manage the logistics. I'm just hearing how like, that's a lot. Like saying that's a lot would be an understatement. But it sounds impossible.
Sarah Tacy [00:46:51]
And people do it. And it makes sense that it would take years to cross through this threshold and to be able to, on the other side, you know, claim like more freedom and gratitude. Would you want to say anything about this version of yourself that you're appreciating like this? Like what has come of it or what parts of yourself have come alive that weren't there like when you were in the. I think anytime anyone's in a relationship, you can let some parts of you go and you can start to.
Sarah Tacy [00:47:29]
And mesh is one word, but there's another one like emerge. I think there's the phrase of merging with somebody and we almost like when you could think of patriarchy or white supremacy where if you live in those waters, you might not even see the patterns. So I imagine then when the separation is happening, that the patterns become apparent that you might not have seen while you're in it. And I assume any one of us listening, myself included, if I'm in a relationship, that there are patterns of myself I'm not seeing and that I wouldn't see unless the relationship as it is diminished or changed in some way.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:48:06]
I can only speak to my experience. What my experience was, was I truly grieved. I loved my husband and I loved my marriage. This was not something I would have chosen. This was not something I couldn't even forgive.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:48:27]
In fact, I did forgive it. I know that that sounds crazy. People have all sorts of opinions around that. But for me, we did couples therapy, we consciously uncoupled and the conscious uncoupling work isn't for everyone. I recommended it to people and they like throw the book at me.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:48:47]
So I understand it's like not for everyone it's but for us it worked. And that work is like, no matter what the other person does, if it's 98.9% their fault, you still look at the 1.1% that you contributed to it. And so I did that, you know, in the context of our couples therapy to the extent that we did that together. And then I did that privately. And it was a deep inventory on self.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:49:17]
And there were so many things I uncovered about myself that were hard, that were sad, that were turning points, right. I don't know how else to say it. And that's really how I healed was I didn't focus on him and what he did. I focused on me and not how I Co created this reality because I did not Co create this reality. And the parts of me that were willing to be blind to some of the warning signs that this could have been happening, or the parts of me that, you know, I had to look at in terms of the me I was before I married, the me I was now, the me I was during the marriage, These were different Me's and I had to bring her all together.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:50:11]
So I will say that my process was the process of atonement. It was a process of personal reflection. It was a process of going really painfully slow and grief when we grieve and grieve well and grieve completely and grieve thoroughly. I will say I don't know the statistics on it, but there is a high likelihood that it will lead you to rebirth because the love that I had for him and the love that we had in our marriage, albeit shattered into a million directions, is still love that I have now. It's just expressed wildly differently.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:50:56]
And it transformed me. And I think grief, when we grieve well, will inevitably always lead to rebirth and a renewed sense of love and a bigger threshold, right. Like I look back on the me I was when I was married and I can have compassion for her. I look back on the me who went through the betrayal and had to wildly step back from not just relational dynamics with friends and family and colleagues, but like my whole social media platform, you know, like I had to like, not that I took down my social media platform, but I had to have some deep boundaries with information I was both putting out because I was in a in a reconfiguring of my own existence and the information I was taking in because it was a two way St. of dysregulation.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:51:52]
And I think that when you take that time and you're really present and you have the resources to do that, inevitably you come out better, stronger. And so I look back on that woman. I'm like, damn, that was hard. I'm proud of you. I look back on my younger self.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:52:13]
I'm like, damn, there was so much you didn't know. And I love you, you know, and I hope to look back on the person I am now. I'm like, yeah, pick yourself up after you fell down and like, look, look at what being in integrity and understanding what dignity means to you and leaving that into your life and moving forward. Look where that took you. I hope, you know, that's my hope, but I just, I really come back to just living one day at a time. Yeah, that's where I'm at.
Sarah Tacy [00:52:46]
Do you want to say anything? We're approaching time here, but anything about the work you offer now and I'm going to say like your new website is out. And so actually I'm going to say something before I give you airtime here, which is I was thinking about your website and how much care you've given to it. And again, just like you going at your pace and I'm actually, I, I feel like there's some details I want to fill in here, which is to say when I met you, your social media, I think you're posting on it like twice a day and you had like nearly 100,000 followers. And to have the discipline.
Sarah Tacy [00:53:29]
So what I also hear in your story is like having the discipline to say like at this time, no, even if that means these numbers might go down or even if this or that. And I know that you're still like you still had your way of like in these in these ways, I will do my business in these ways, I will do social. But like your boundaries are really amazing when you know, like when it's time for self-care or it's just that it's always included, like what is my capacity now? I find you to be really honest with that question and let go of things and then not be afraid to like reclaim if or when they're ever right. And then watching you with the website over this past year, just take care and time and like when you're ready and when you're feeling it.
Sarah Tacy [00:54:20]
And same thing with like when are you willing to take on a new client? And there's a lot of integrity with what you do and what you offer. You're not going to be a practitioner who says yes to everything because of other people's needs, but also not out of lack. You don't do it out of lack either. Like, oh, I have to say yes to this.
Sarah Tacy [00:54:47]
Otherwise, like you really have a paced integrity and I just think about how much whoever is working with you benefits from having somebody on the other side mirror that way of being. So that wasn't a question. It was more of reflecting on how I see you as you do your work. And I'm also going to just maybe promote you a little more. Even though you were not asking for promotion, you may not be on promotion, which is I got to speak to somebody who is working with you and she really spoke to your multi dimensional nature and the way that you have shifted her.
Sarah Tacy [00:55:28]
I guess I can't say too much because I didn't have permission, but I'll just say like the way that you shifted so many dynamics of her life that would then play into the way that she does business life and love. Are you taking anybody? Like what's the deal?
Jennifer Racioppi [00:55:45]
I am you can you know, if you want coaching or an astrology session, I offer both. And I just want to say like I appreciate that so much and I personally don't shift anyone. My clients shift in the container we Co create together. And so if you know you as a listener are interested in this, you can check out my website. But it's really the integrity of the client.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:56:11]
You know, they show up, they have their intention. I have fierce and solid boundaries. I have fierce and solid, you know, insight and skill to offer and I can hold and create containers really well. But my work is really about letting someone shift themselves right and like and holding them through the process. So if that speaks.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:56:35]
To you as a listener, please come check out my work or you know, but really what's most exciting to me right now. And thank you so much for mentioning the website because as you know, that was like something I was just not rushing. Oh, really what I'm most excited about right now is cosmic health's out in soft cover. And so if you haven't picked up Cosmic Health, please do. It's in soft cover.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:56:57]
And I will say that I wrote that book before my life blew up, but my life blew up while I was editing that book. And that book was like, I was like channeling the blueprint of what I was going to need for what I went through. And so that body of work is deeply proud of, and I am really fortunate to have midwife that book with spirit, however you want to say it, because it's really was a huge blessing in my own life, if I can say that as an author. And yeah.
Sarah Tacy [00:57:29]
I'm not sure I've ever heard you say it like that before. That's really beautiful. I imagined that it was, you know, the effect or the after of going through what you went through when you were 19 and 20 and all of the research and the business woman that you became and the people you helped. But to then also see it as the blueprints of what would help you through that next phase of your life.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:57:54]
As this was happening, I'm like, you gotta be kidding me. I'm writing a book on resilience and never do. I had to be more resilient in my life. Like I get you, Cosmic.
Sarah Tacy [00:58:02]
Oh my God, that has happened so many times to me where I'm like teaching this thing that I think is like so deep and rich, but then the universe is like, oh, you think you got that lesson. And then I feel like I get an opportunity to practice it with 10 times more oomph behind it. And like, you don't really want to teach them that again. Well, I think that's beautiful. And thank you.
Sarah Tacy [00:58:29]
Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you for your honesty. I don't know if this is the first time that you've come out to speak about this, but I appreciate it and I appreciate you also starting at the beginning. I imagine that could be like, oh, Sarah wants me to talk about all my heart thresholds. But thank you because for the listener too, I just think that there's, so I've said to you, my hope for this is accompaniment that there can be that like, Oh yeah, post surgery, I have felt these differences too.
Sarah Tacy [00:58:58]
Or Oh yeah, that switch between this and that or people not knowing or people telling me I'm OK, but I'm not feeling OK. And the many layers of betrayal and getting to the other side and finding out who we are and our sovereign selves and weaving together so.
Jennifer Racioppi [00:59:14]
Don't give up. Like no matter how dark and thrown cast aside, you feel like there've been so many times in my life, I just felt utterly cast aside. Like the freaking the weirdo in the corner, Like don't not trust yourself and don't give up. And it's OK to be that ostracized version of yourself. There's a better tomorrow if you just keep going. And that's, you know, really the best I could offer anyone right now.
Sarah Tacy [00:59:40]
Awesome. Thank you for our listeners and for Jen Rasiopi. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for your time. And here's to the mantra of don't give up. There's a better tomorrow.
[01:09:00]
Thank you for tuning in. It's been such a pleasure if you're looking for added support. I'm offering a program that's totally free called 21 Days of Untapped Support. It's pretty awesome. It's very easy, it's very helpful. You can find it at sarahtacy.com. And if you love this episode, please subscribe. And like, apparently it's wildly useful. So we could just explore what happens when you Scroll down to the bottom subscribe rate, maybe say a thing or two. If you're not feeling it, don't do it. It's totally fine. I look forward to gathering with you again. Thank you so much.