Bonus EP: Designing the Life You Love with Lyndsey KampenBonus EP: Designing the Life You Love with Lyndsey Kampen
The Emotional Abuse Recovery Podcast
Two survivors, Allison K. Dagney and Lyndsey Kampen, talk about leaving toxic relationships and using design-inspired tools to create a life that feels authentic. The conversation touches on generational trauma, intuition, suppressed anger and small daily steps that support emotional healing and self-trust.
51:50•23 Jul 2026
Designing a Life You Love After Toxic Relationships with Lyndsey Kampen
Episode Overview
- Clarifying what you truly want, like using a "magic wand" vision, is the first step in designing a life that feels aligned.
- Asking questions such as "Who am I being?" helps reveal patterns and cycles that keep you in toxic relationships without placing blame.
- Small, consistent actions—like daily audio support and morning intention practices—create meaningful long-term change.
- Emotions, including rage, are signals that want to be witnessed; releasing them safely can clear mental and physical tension.
- Strengthening intuition becomes easier as anxiety settles and you create quiet, tech-free space to listen to yourself.
“"Something for the listeners, something that's really simple that I teach is ABCs. Always be curious."”
Curious about how others navigate their sobriety journey and emotional healing? This bonus episode brings together two survivors, host Allison K. Dagney and guest life designer Lyndsey Kampen, for a candid chat about rebuilding life after toxic and abusive relationships. You'll hear Lyndsey explain how she moved from interior and graphic design into "helping women redesign their life" after a long marriage and a subsequent abusive relationship with a narcissist.
She links her old work to her new mission with the same key question: if you had a magic wand, what would you create? That simple idea of vision and intention runs through the whole conversation. The episode digs into familiar patterns, generational trauma, and why asking better questions is crucial.
Lyndsey shares how reading *Psychopath Free* finally gave her clarity on her situation and led her to ask, "Who am I being to attract this person?"—not as self-blame, but as a way to spot and change deeply rooted cycles. Allison echoes this with her own story of a seemingly perfect marriage that was emotionally abusive behind closed doors, and how her children’s reactions to the divorce showed the impact of choosing a healthier path.
You’ll also get practical tools: Lyndsey’s ABCs—"Always be curious"—for catching unhelpful stories like "I have to do everything myself," and both women emphasise tiny daily steps, morning routines, and gentle, consistent practices as the real engine of change. They talk about intuition returning once anxiety and abuse quieten down, and why suppressed rage and other emotions are signals that "just want to be witnessed".
If you’re sitting in a life that looks fine from the outside but feels wrong on the inside, this conversation might be the nudge to start asking what *you* actually want—and how you’re going to design a life that fits. What’s the first small step you’re willing to take today?
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