Dealing with the end of a relationship with someone with an avoidant attachment system. They love you, but they can never love you (unless they do the work). 

Lose Things Easy

Ever notice how you contort yourself to fit what someone else wants? When you play small, hide parts of yourself, or pretend to be something you're not just to have a relationship?
You can't have happiness when you're living a half-life. Subservience to an ideal—whether it's a relationship, a lifestyle, or some fantasy version of yourself—is just another prison you've built.
Ready to stop contorting yourself into someone else's idea of perfect? This episode will help you recognize where you're sacrificing your authenticity and how to reclaim the real you.

In this episode, Tracy explores:
* Why suppressing your authentic self guarantees relationship failure
* How avoidants develop "imposter syndrome" in relationships
* The exhausting pattern of hiding who you are to please others

"No one who wants to suppress you and you wanting to suppress you makes nobody happy. Remember that. Happy people don't need another person to make them happy."


#807: Don't Be A Gumby

A bold, honest dispatch on avoidant attachment, desire, sex, and the sacred clarity of choosing yourself. Christen Rodgers unpacks what it means to be a woman who doesn’t collapse to be loved—and why she now prefers good sleep over mediocre penetration. For anyone tired of shrinking for approval, this is for you.

Avoidant, Funded, and Free: Dispatches from a Woman Who Didn’t Wait to Be Chosen

Are you exhausted from forcing everything to happen? From pushing through goals that leave you feeling empty once you reach them?

Most avoidants live like they're perpetually on fire—reacting, controlling, forcing outcomes because "easy" feels dangerous. But here's the thing: all that forcing keeps you from the very flow state that would actually get you where you want to go.

In this episode, Tracy explores:
* Why ease feels dangerous when you're avoidant
* The difference between forcing and allowing
* How perfectionism keeps you stuck in empty cycles
* Sitting with discomfort instead of reacting
* Recognizing when you're escaping versus flowing

"When you're forcing, you're coming from a state of lack. You can't force a healthy relationship. You can't force anything meaningful. But we keep trying because we're afraid to let go of the false building we've created that everyone can admire." ~ Tracy Crossley


#617: How To Stay In The Flow As An Avoidant

Are you stuck in your comfort zone, waiting for someone or something to rescue you from yourself? You're not alone. So many of us live in what Tracy calls "the box"—that familiar prison where we feel safe but never truly alive.

We tell ourselves we don't need approval. We act like we don't give a shit what anyone thinks. But deep down? We're still waiting. Waiting for the right person to make it safe. Waiting for the universe to send a sign. Waiting for someone else to take the emotional risk first.

In this episode, Tracy explores:
* Why seeking approval keeps you trapped in avoidance patterns
* How "safe" actually means familiar (and why that's dangerous)
* The difference between avoiding life and living in flow
* Why emotionally risky action is the only path to freedom
* How to break free from your own fucking prison, one small step at a time

"You have to create your own safety. And stepping forward and taking an emotionally risky action is the only way that you live a life where you feel it's full of joy and happiness." ~ Tracy Crossley


#818: Approval Seeking Avoidants

Are you exhausted from trying to make everything happen? From kicking down doors and forcing your way into opportunities that never quite pan out?

Stop. Just stop.

You think you're being proactive, but you're actually running from yourself. Every time you force something—a relationship, a job, a business opportunity—you're telling the universe you don't trust it to deliver. You're saying you're not enough as you are.

In this episode, Tracy explores:
* Why forcing comes from not believing in yourself
* How attachment keeps you stuck in patterns of scarcity and desperation
* The difference between taking action and forcing outcomes
* Why avoidants struggle to value what they already have
* How to break the cycle of work hard → fail → repeat

"When you force, you're never emotionally available. I was forcing because I thought that would open a door that would bring what was missing, but it never did." ~ Tracy Crossley


#819: Are You Still Forcing Sh** to Happen?

Having a hard time? Yeah, everybody goes through hard times. You're not alone.

But here's what gets lost when life feels like a shit show: kindness to yourself. Not the bullshit "be kind to your neighbor" stuff—real kindness to YOU. When everything's falling apart, we get lost in all the circumstances and stories instead of asking: How can I be kind to myself right now?

Most of us can think those thoughts, but actually feeling it and living it? That's the hard part.

In this episode, Tracy explores:
* Why we exhaust ourselves beating up on ourselves during hard times
* How avoidance and numbness keep us stuck in struggle
* The difference between problem-solving and actual self-compassion
* Why being honest about where you are IS kindness
* How small promises to yourself create real change

"It's not about the tenacity to get to the goal, it's actually the tenacity to be kind to yourself. The tenacity meaning staying on track." ~ Tracy Crossley


#820: Having A Hard Time?

In this episode, I explore the cracks and catalysts reshaping American politics. From Zohran Mamdani’s rising voice to Kamala’s cautious pivots, from Trump’s chaos as a four-alarm fire to the uncomfortable truths it exposed — this is about more than parties or policies. It’s about trust, belonging, and whether a country built on avoidance could ever say yes to reciprocity, support, or each other. The soil’s been tilled. The question is: what will we plant next?

NEW SERIES: “America, What Would It Take to Say Yes to Us?”

What if the way you love, fight, avoid, or people-please wasn’t a personality flaw—but a survival blueprint?

In this episode, I sit down with trauma-informed therapist Laura Fess, founder of VOX Mental Health, for a powerful conversation about what really happens to our nervous system when we grow up in survival mode—and how those early patterns shape our adult relationships, attachment styles, and mental health.

We explore:
• How survival mode wires the brain for hypervigilance
• What anxious, avoidant, and disorganized attachment really look like in adulthood
• The neuroscience behind healing, storytelling, and post-traumatic growth
• Why unlearning old patterns isn’t failure—it’s neuroplasticity
• The quiet, resilient power of hope—and how to let it drive

I also share a journal entry from when I was 15, written during a pivotal turning point in my family’s story. It’s conflicted and searching, filled with the kind of quiet hope that surfaces when you're desperate for change but not sure it will come.

It’s vulnerable, reflective, and the perfect opening to this layered conversation about pain, healing, and how we can slowly carve new paths—machete in hand—toward something different.

If your story includes trauma, survival mode, or the long journey of trying to feel safe again, this one is for you.

🔗 Connect with VOX Mental Health:
• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• Facebook

Host/Producer/Writer/Director: Jenn St John

Editor: Andrew Schiller
Website: www.jennstjohn.ca
Follow along:
Instagram: @jenn_stjohn
LinkedIn: Jenn St John

If this episode spoke to you, share it with someone who might need to hear it too.

Subscribe, leave a review, or just send a little love—your support helps these conversations reach the people who need them most.

Blueprint

Terrified of the Fall is an experimental indie-alt pop confession about avoidant attachment, emotional shutdown, and the internal war between the adult self and the inner child.

This track blends poetic rap with cinematic ambience, capturing the fear of being seen, the terror of being abandoned, and the pain of repeating old survival patterns.
It’s the sound of someone trying to love while fighting their own mind, of wanting closeness but running from it, of breaking the person they love while trying to protect themselves.

The song explores avoidant fear, self-sabotage, trauma responses, emotional numbness, and the moment you finally understand why you push people away. The dual-voice rap verses reveal the inner child who tries to protect you, while the final verse confronts that fear directly.

Terrified of the Fall is for anyone who grew up learning to survive instead of trust, for anyone who runs from love while craving it, and for anyone healing the parts of themselves that never felt safe.

Terrified of the Fall

Hi, I’m Jenn, and I’m passionate about transforming the conversation around mental health through creativity, connection, and advocacy. Nearly 50 years of life have taught me that we all carry shadows—stories that shape who we are and how we show up in the world. My story began with the challenges of growing up with a parent battling undiagnosed mental illness, an experience that deeply influenced my resilience, empathy, and innovative spirit.

A lot of us live in our head, disconnected from our feelings and intuition. This podcast touches on releasing insecure attachment, accepting your authentic self and getting “unstuck” by connecting to how you FEEL instead of how you THINK. I’ve been there, and discuss sensitive subjects using my own experiences with a lot of laughs and even more empathy… because we’re all flawed humans.

I started writing songs in the moments I couldn’t explain, when thoughts tangled, when everything shifted, when silence said too much.

Now, I bring those lyrics to life with AI, blending human emotion with machine-made sound to create something new: part real, part unreal but always honest.

From indie folk and alternative rock to house and cinematic soundscapes, my music lives where genres blur and transformation begins.
It’s for anyone who’s ever felt in-between. Who’s let go, started over, or stood at the edge of something uncertain.

This is music for when words weren’t enough and sound had to take over.

Singer-songwriter based in Birmingham, Alabama. My new EP, "It's Just Rain," will be released in the fall of 2024.

New tracks tagged #avoidant attachment