THE SPACE BETWEEN LEAVING AND LIVING

Last week, I introduced you to Veronica. She was a woman who was held hostage inside of her own marriage. She had 3 different love patterns that were running at the same time inside of one narcissistic relationship. She had a 5C score of 0 out of 5, and she was a woman whose personality was literally drowning inside of her marriage. If that episode hit you, if you took the narcissism test and your number scared you, then I'm glad that it scared you. Not because I want you to hurt or to feel any kind of pain, but because knowing exactly where you are—that's the first step to leaving and gaining the freedom that you want. So you're no longer in that pain because awareness is always that first step that you have to take. But there's also one thing that I didn't share with you last week: leaving is just the beginning. Leaving isn't the hard part; the hard part is what comes. Because some people leave the relationship, but they never leave the pain. They move out, but they never move on. They escape the prison, but stand at the door for years with one foot inside of that door and another foot out. They're unable to walk forward, but they're also afraid to go back. And this week, that's the person that I want to talk to you about. Her name is Tonya, and she left her husband 2 years ago. She got her own home. She got her own place, her own car, her own life. And by every visible measure on the outside, she looks like she's free and she's no longer dealing with him or no longer attached to him. But she won't file for divorce. For 2 years, she's been standing in the doorway. This is week 2 of the Held Hostage miniseries, The Doorway.

Now. First they wanna see me fall, see me break, see me crawl. Never wanna see me whole, truth untold. But now I speak, so you gon' feel it all. I'm the presence in the room, I don't just speak. I command your presence, demand excellence. Breathe fire with reckless reverence, planted in the best soil. Deep like ancestral truth. Try to form a plan, but you could never reroute me. I'm still here, congratulate me. Survived it all, wore it like a suit and walked through hell with a heaven-bound boot. That's the same path you gonna walk, from broken to unbreakable, from loss to legacy. Talk intact life, we map the journey. Seven loops, five modes, five pillars, no attorney. Break your loop, build your love. This is how we rise above. Shamsuddin Hakim, Intact Life Podcast.

Welcome to the Welcome back. I'm Shamsudin, your host of The Intact Life. And before we get into today's episode, if you've been following the Held Hostage series, you've heard me talk about love patterns, narcissistic conditioning, and the 5C filter. If you haven't taken the free intact assessment yet, then I need you to go ahead and do it right now. Pause this episode and go to theintactlife.com. And you can take the assessment. Take it. It's free, and it takes about 10 minutes. And by the time you come back to this episode, you'll know exactly which pattern I'm talking about when I describe it. Go to theintactlife.com and go take it. I'll be right here waiting for you to get back. Now, before we get into Tanya's story on Wednesday, I need to teach you a concept that doesn't get talked about enough. We celebrate leaving. We talk— we see the post on social media where somebody says that, you know what, I left him. And this is that moment where I choose myself post. This is my glam-up season. I could do bad by myself. You'll see them talk about how they left a toxic situation. And listen to me, leaving a toxic relationship takes an enormous amount of courage. So I'm not minimizing that for one second. But you don't see people post about what they do After they have left, nobody talks about the woman who moved out six months ago, but she still checks his Instagram every night. Nobody talks about the man who filed for divorce, but he still drives by her house at six a.m. just to see if another car is in the driveway. Nobody talks about the person who left the relationship but is still living in it. He's living there, living in it emotionally, energetically, spiritually, and financially. That's what I call. The doorway. You're not in the house anymore, but you're not in the yard either. You're standing in the doorframe with one foot in and one foot out, and you're able to see both sides, but you're not going to commit to either side. And some people stand there for years. In psychology, there's a term for what these people are experiencing, and it's called ambiguous loss. Ambiguous loss is grief without closure. It's when you've lost something, but it's not clearly gone. It's still hovering. It's still present. You, you still feel it. It still says things and whispers in your ear, maybe. When someone dies, the grief is devastating, but it's very clear that that person has died. It's clear that they're gone. You mourn them, you bury them, you process them passing. There's a funeral, there's a timeline. And society understands this very well. But when a marriage ends without actually ending, when you separate but don't divorce, when you leave but he's still calling, when you moved out but he's driving by the house, when the relationship is dead but nobody has declared the time of death, that's ambiguous loss. And it's the cruelest kind of grief because your brain can't process something that hasn't officially ended. And here's what makes it dangerous. Ambiguous loss keeps you in a permanent state of maybe. You'll hear whispers like, maybe he'll change. Maybe therapy will work this time. Maybe God is telling me to wait. Maybe I should go back. Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe. That's all you keep hearing is maybe. And you know what I say maybe is? It's on my list of some of the most expensive words in the human language. Because while you're standing in maybe, your life is on hold and time is just passing you by. You can't fully grieve because it's not officially over. You can't fully heal because you're still connected. You can't fully love again because you're technically still married. You can't fully live because you're stuck in the doorway. I've coached hundreds of people through separation and divorce, and the doorway has 3 traps that keep people stuck. Trap number 1 is the financial tether. This is when you've left, but you still accept money from them. Maybe it's bills they pay, maybe it's help they offer, maybe it's health insurance tied to their job. Whatever it is, the money keeps a cord attached. And every time you accept it, you're saying, I'm not fully independent yet. Even if you are independent, the financial connection gives your brain permission to stay and maybe. Trap number 2, the hope tether. This is the big one. You've left, but you're still hoping they'll change. Not consciously, you'd never say it out loud, but somewhere in the back of your mind, you're thinking, if I wait long enough, they'll wake up, they'll fight for me, they'll become the person I married. And every time they do something slightly decent, A nice text, an unexpected gift, showing up at church, the hope reignites. And you think, see, maybe they are changing. But here's the truth. Hope without evidence is just wishful thinking. And 2 years of wishful thinking is 2 years of your life you're not getting back. Trap number 3, the faith tether. This one is specific to spiritual people, and it's the most dangerous trap because it wraps fear in religious language. It sounds like God hates divorce. I need to wait on the Lord. Marriage is a covenant. What if God wants me to stay? And those statements aren't wrong theologically, but they become dangerous when they're just used only to justify staying in a situation that's destroying you. Because here's what I've learned in 25 years of coaching. God doesn't keep people in prisons. God liberates. And if you have the courage to leave, If your spirit was so broken that your body moved you out of that house, that wasn't disobedience. That was deliverance. And standing in the doorway for 2 years questioning whether God wanted you to leave, that's not faithfulness. That's fear wearing a religious outfit. So how do you know if you're in the doorway? Let me give you the pattern. Stage 1 is the brave exit. You leave, you pack your bags, you get your apartment, you tell your friends, you feel powerful. For the first few weeks, maybe even months, you're riding the high of freedom. I did it. I actually left. And everyone around you celebrates. I'm so proud of you. You deserve better. You're so strong. Stage 2 is the quiet creep. This is when the high fades. The apartment is quiet. Friday nights feel different when it's just you and the TV. You start remembering Not the bad times, but the good ones. The early days, the laughter, the what if we had just tried harder. And the phone starts buzzing. He texts something neutral. She likes your photo. A mutual friend says they've been asking about you. And the door that you closed starts cracking open. Stage 3 is the doorway. This is where you get stuck. You're not going back. You know you can't, but you're not going forward either because forward means final. Forward means filing paperwork. Forward means changing your last name. Forward means telling your kids mommy and daddy aren't getting back together. Forward means admitting it failed. You answer her calls. You go to the same church. You don't date anyone new. You exist in limbo. And limbo feels safe because limbo means you don't have to choose. But here's what nobody tells you about limbo. Limbo has a Every day you stand in the doorway, you're paying rent in 2 places: the life you left and the life you haven't started. And eventually you'll run out of emotional currency for both. Stage 4: The Paralysis. Months pass, then a year, then 2, and you're still in the doorway. Your friends stop asking. Your family assumes you've figured it out. And you, you normalize limbo. You've made the doorway your home. And that's where I found Tonya. 2 years in the doorway, one foot out, one foot in, telling me, I'm like someone trying to jump into the rope but can't make the jump. I don't know why I'm still standing outside trying to get in, but yet I don't want to. And on Wednesday, I'm going to walk you through exactly what I told her, how I identified her love patterns, how we uncovered what was really keeping her stuck, and what the 90-day path to freedom looks like. Now, if you're listening to this and you just recognize yourself in one of these 4 stages, the Brave Beggar, The quiet creep, the doorway, or the paralysis, I need you to do 2 things. First, take the free assessment at theintactlife.com. It'll show you which love pattern is keeping you stuck in that doorway because the doorway isn't random. It's pattern-driven.

Right.

And your pattern has a name. Second, book a strategy session with me. It's $30, 30 minutes. I go through your results personally, not a recording, not an AI. It's me. We figure out which trap is holding you— the financial, the hope, or the faith tether— and we build a plan to walk through the door for good. I only open up 5 spots per week. They're almost gone this week. The link is in the bio, theintactlife.com/coaching. Before I let you go today, I'm going to give you 10 signs that you're standing in the doorway. It's the same format as last week's narcissism test where you can count your true statements. Number 1, you left the relationship, but you haven't filed any legal paperwork. No divorce papers, no separation agreement, no asset division. It's been more than 6 months. Number 2, you still accept money, favors, or support from your ex, even though you're capable of providing for yourself. Number 3, you avoid dating or opening yourself to a new connection because you feel technically still married or technically still committed. Number 4, you know exactly what they're doing. You check their social media, you drive past their place, you ask mutual friends about them. You're monitoring from a distance. When someone asks if you're single, you hesitate. You say it's complicated or we're separated instead of it's over. Number 6, you still hope they'll change, even though nothing in their behavior over the separation has demonstrated actual change. Number 7, you use faith or spirituality as a reason to wait. You say things like, I'm praying about it. God hasn't told me to move on yet. Marriage is a covenant. To avoid decision, but you're using faith to avoid decision, not to seek direction. Number 8, you've told yourself, I'll give it one more month, more than 3 times. Number 9, your life looks free on the outside— own place, your own job, you have your own social life— but you feel stuck on the inside. You're functioning but not living. Number 10, part of you knows it's over. You've known for months, maybe years, but admitting it out loud makes it real, and you're not ready for real. If you've checked 3 or more, you're in the doorway. If you checked 6 or more, you've been in the doorway so long that limbo has become your life. If you checked 8 or more, you left the prison, but you took the chains with you, and it's time to put them down. If those numbers hit you, 2 things right now. Go to theintactlife.com and score your relationship through the 5C date filter. It's 3 dates, 5 filters, 1 clear answer. And if you took the narcissism test last week, And your score was above 50, then we definitely need to talk. Go ahead and book a strategy session. It's $30, 30 minutes. The link is in the bio. And let's figure this out together. On Wednesday is episode 11, The Woman Who Left But Never Locked the Door, Tanya's Story. I'm walking you through the full coaching session. You're going to hear how a spiritual independent Strong woman can still be held hostage, not by a person, but by her own fear and by a version of faith that became a chain instead of a key. And Friday, episode— when God says go, but your heart says stay. This is a faith-based framework for every spiritual person who's stuck between what they know and what they feel. This one's going to free some people. 3 things before I go. One, take the assessment if you haven't at theintactlife.com. It's 10 minutes. Your love pattern, your 5 pillar scores, your life mode, your evolved form is free right now and it's free forever. 2, if this episode hits you, take the narcissism test too at theintactlife.com/narcissismtest. Find out if you've been conditioned for or if you have tendencies of a narcissist. 15 questions, 5 minutes. 3, I have 2 strategy session spots left for this week. $30, 30 minutes, your results, your action plan, your breakthrough. The link is in the bio. Don't wait till next week. Next week is a new story and those spots reset. Book it today. If you need to talk to someone right now, then you can go to Delphi for my AI coaching companion. It's available 24/7 and it's no judgment. It's trained on the same intake Framework that helped Tanya see her truth. The link is in the bio. Follow me at Ask Me Now. I'm doing live coaching every Tuesday and Thursday. If you're in the doorway and you want someone to see you clearly, then go ahead and show up. Subscribe, share this with someone who needs it, and I'll see you Wednesday. I'm Shamsuddin. This is The Intact Life, and the doorway was never meant to be your home.

Intact Life.

Ow!

First they wanna see me fall, see me break, see me crawl. Never wanna see me whole, truth untold. But now I speak, so you gonna feel it all. I'm the presence in the room, I don't just speak. I command your presence, demand excellence, breathe fire with reckless abandon. Reverence planted in the best soil, deep like ancestral truth. Try to form a plan, but you could never reroute me. I'm still here, congratulate me, survived it all. Wore it like a suit and walked through hell with a heaven-bound boot. That's the same path you gonna walk. From broken to unbreakable, from loss to legacy. Talk intact life, we mapped the journey. 7 loops, 5 more.

Shamsudin Hakim.

Intag Life Podcast. Welcome to the session. Let's go. Intag Life.