Patterns Between Us Podcast

Cyd McDaniel
  • 5.0 (1)
  • MENTAL HEALTH
  • UPDATED WEEKLY

A podcast exploring the relational patterns and emotional triggers that shape how we love, connect and heal. patternsbetweenuspodcast.substack.com

Episodes

  1. The Last Line Item

    1D AGO

    The Last Line Item

    I was twenty-seven years old the first time I paid someone to take care of my hands. The women who raised me did not do this. My mother did not. My grandmother did not. And last week, I walked into a nail salon and saw a little girl getting a fill-in, scrolling on her phone like it was nothing — because for her, it is nothing. Something has shifted between her generation and mine, and between mine and my mother’s. This episode is about the shift we have made, and the deeper shift we still have not made. It is about the pattern of being the last line item in our own lives — and what it actually costs us, and the women coming behind us, to keep living that way. In this episode * The generational shift in what “self-investment” was even allowed to look like for Black women — and where that shift still has not gone far enough * Why looking well-kept is not the same as being well-resourced * The inheritance we are quietly carrying: that a good woman gives until she is empty * A working definition of self-investment as intentional, a deposit (not an expense), and spanning every domain of your life — emotional, physical, intellectual, spiritual, relational, financial * The difference between self-improvement (trying to prove you are enough) and self-investment (the response to the enough you already are) * Why “collapse with better marketing” is not the same as rest * A direct invitation to open your calendar and your bank account and ask one honest question A line to sit with Self-improvement is a verdict. Self-investment is a blessing. And another: You are the account that everyone else flows from. If she is empty, everything downstream is empty. The question to carry with you After this episode ends, open your calendar. Open your bank account. Open your schedule. And ask, honestly: What have I actually invested in myself this month? Not for your children. Not for your husband. Not for your mother. Not for the ministry. Not for the job. In you. Sit with the answer. Whatever it is. Where this work continues If this episode moved something in you, the ecosystem is built to hold what comes next: * Free Your Mind Program — the monthly virtual gathering on the psychology of wealth, rest, and resourcing yourself like you are worth it. Founding member rate open now. * Free Your Mind Retreat — October 15–18, 2026. Four days of clinical retreat for Black women ready to stop coming last in their own lives. * A Black Woman’s Journey Brunch + Founding Circle — the in-person door into the sanctuary. Listen + subscribe Subscribe to Patterns Between Us wherever you get your podcasts, and subscribe to this Substack so the companion essays land in your inbox alongside each new episode. If this one met you somewhere, share it with the woman you were thinking about while you listened. The pattern can end with you. And you can be the woman your daughter remembers as the one who finally gave herself permission. You are worth the investment. You have always been worth the investment. Cyd McDaniel is a licensed clinician and the founder of Essential Journey Wellness and A Black Woman’s Journey. Patterns Between Us is part of the Free Your Mind ecosystem. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit patternsbetweenuspodcast.substack.com

    19 min

  2. 3D AGO

    The Moment Before You Disappear

    Last week, we sat together and named a pattern. Self-abandonment. The way we hand ourselves over, slowly, often in the smallest moments — to keep peace, to keep connection, to keep being seen as the capable one. This week, I want to take you somewhere harder. I want to show you what self-abandonment actually looks like. Not in a story from your childhood. Not in a relationship that ended years ago. But on a Tuesday afternoon. In an email exchange. In a text thread with someone whose opinion matters to you. Because that is where it lives. Not in the past. In the present. In the small moments most of us do not even register — until we are already gone. A few weeks ago, someone whose opinion I respect asked me to soften something. Not something small. Something that sat at the heart of work I had been doing. The request was reasonable on its surface. It was framed as helpful. And it asked me to take a word I had chosen carefully, a word that came from years of watching, a word that was true — and replace it with something easier. Something more pleasant. Something that would land more softly on more people. I want to tell you what happened next. Not what I thought. What I felt. I felt my stomach go empty. Not anxious. Not angry. Empty. A particular kind of empty I have felt before — and so have you, if you are a woman who has spent her life being the capable one. Here is the part I want you to hear. I almost said yes. Not out loud, not yet. But in my head, the sentence was already forming. You are probably right. Let me think about how to make it more positive. That sentence had a particular flavor. It was reasonable. It was collaborative. It was — easy. And it would have cost me something I could not have named in the moment. That is what self-abandonment looks like on a Tuesday afternoon. Not a dramatic surrender. A small, almost-invisible yes — in the place where a no, or even a let me sit with that, needed to be. A reasonable yes. A polite yes. A yes that protects the relationship and costs only a small piece of yourself. That is how it always goes. Not in one big betrayal. In a thousand reasonable yeses, said too quickly, by women who were taught that the cost of a no was higher than the cost of a slow disappearance. Here is what this episode names: — That inspirational content does not heal high-achieving women. It tells us to come home to ourselves without ever asking where we went. — That there is a difference between softening something true and sanitizing it. Softening serves the listener. Sanitizing serves the messenger. — That the empty stomach is not a problem to be fixed. It is information. It is your body, doing the job it has been trying to do for you your whole life — telling you when something true is being asked to disappear. — That self-abandonment does not stop when you stop having the feeling. It stops when you stop overriding it. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit patternsbetweenuspodcast.substack.com

    19 min
  3. When the Pattern Is Self-Abandonment

    APR 28 ·  BONUS

    When the Pattern Is Self-Abandonment

    Sometimes the deepest pattern isn't with a partner. It's with yourself — the quiet ways you keep leaving yourself behind, even in the rooms you worked hardest to enter. In this special Field Notes episode, Cyd reflects on what surfaced for her during the Black Women Invent (BWI) experience — and the pattern of self-abandonment she watched move through the room and through herself. With honesty and care, she names the way Black women often pour out without ever pouring in, and what it costs to keep doing that. In this episode: What self-abandonment actually looks like (and why it's rarely loud) Why high-achieving women are often the most disconnected from their own needs The difference between being responsible and being depleted Why naming the pattern is the first step to interrupting it A question to sit with this week: Where in your life are you consistently leaving yourself behind — and what would it look like to come back? Subscribe to Patterns Between Us so you don't miss what's next. And if this episode named something for you, share it with someone who's been quietly asking the same questions. 🎙️ Listen on Apple Podcasts | Spotify This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit patternsbetweenuspodcast.substack.com

    12 min
  4. It Started Before You Think It Did

    APR 20

    It Started Before You Think It Did

    Most of us think our patterns started with a heartbreak or a hard relationship. The truth is, the blueprint was already being written before we said our first word. EPISODE SUMMARY In Episode 2, Cyd takes you back further than most conversations about relational patterns ever go — to the womb, to your earliest caretakers, to the emotional environment you were formed inside of before you had any language for what was happening. With clinical depth and personal warmth, she traces how your nervous system began learning what connection feels like long before your first relationship. KEY TAKEAWAYS * Why your nervous system began organizing in utero, not at birth * What your relationship with your mother taught you about emotional safety * What your relationship with your father taught you about being valued and chosen * How siblings (or their absence) shaped your sense of belonging * Why your earliest experiences are still running in the background of every adult relationship REFLECTION QUESTION What was the emotional environment you were born into and what did connection feel like with the people who were most consistently present in your earliest years? CALL TO ACTION Subscribe to Patterns Between Us so you don’t miss what’s next. And if this episode named something for you, share it with someone who’s been quietly asking the same questions. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit patternsbetweenuspodcast.substack.com

    14 min
  5. WHY DO I KEEP ENDING UP IN THE SAME RELATIONSHIP?

    APR 17

    WHY DO I KEEP ENDING UP IN THE SAME RELATIONSHIP?

    Episode 1: Why Do I Keep Ending Up in the Same Relationship? Same feeling. Same dynamic. Different person — but somehow it all starts to feel familiar. In this first episode, therapist Cyd McDaniel, LCSW, offers a gentle shift: away from what’s wrong with me? and toward a more useful question — what feels familiar here? She explores why we’re wired to move toward what’s known, even when it doesn’t feel good, and why the pull you feel toward certain people isn’t a flaw. It’s a signal. This week’s practice: Notice what feels familiar in your relationships — not just what feels good, but what feels known. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit patternsbetweenuspodcast.substack.com

    10 min
  • 5 Episodes

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A podcast exploring the relational patterns and emotional triggers that shape how we love, connect and heal. patternsbetweenuspodcast.substack.com

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