Dear Jordan…Letters to my Daughter | Personal Growth, Healing, and Motherhood

About Dear Jordan…Letters to my Daughter | Personal Growth, Healing, and Motherhood

Dear Jordan is a collection of letters written from a mother to her daughter, capturing the lessons life doesn’t come with instructions for. In each episode, Andrea Ruiz shares honest reflections on love, identity, resilience, and the realities of rebuilding after toxic relationships, divorce, and personal loss. Drawing from her lived experience — as well as her work as a certified mental health and wellness coach — Andrea offers perspective that is both deeply personal and grounded in understanding human behavior, emotional healing, and growth.

Publisher

Andrea Ruiz | Personal Growth and Mental Health Coach

Category

kids & family

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

1 Jan 2026

Latest episode

19 Sept 2026

Latest episodes

27 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   19 Sept 2026

   Dear Jordan…Healing Is Not Amnesia | What You Do With What Happened to You

   What does healing from domestic violence trauma actually look like—and why doesn’t “getting over it” work? In this episode of Dear Jordan… Letters to My Daughter, Andrea explores trauma recovery after domestic violence, including hypervigilance, nervous-system responses, emotional triggers, fear, self-doubt, and the lasting psychological effects abuse can leave behind long after the relationship ends. Drawing from her own experiences with traumatic loss and intimate partner violence, Andrea examines the difference between surviving trauma and healing from it. She also discusses why survivors may continue reacting to danger even when they are physically safe, why functioning does not always mean someone is healed, and why perpetrators of abuse may pressure survivors to forgive, forget, or “move on.” This episode also explores trauma through both psychological and Christian perspectives, including forgiveness, boundaries, discernment, renewing the mind, and the biblical truth that healing does not require pretending the wound never existed. Healing is not amnesia. You can remember what happened without allowing it to control your future. You can keep the wisdom, release the shame, rebuild your sense of safety, and decide what role your trauma will have in the rest of your story. Topics discussed include: domestic violence recovery, trauma healing, post-separation healing, PTSD and trauma responses, hypervigilance, nervous-system regulation, emotional abuse, intimate partner violence, forgiveness after abuse, Christian trauma recovery, boundaries, faith after trauma, and rebuilding after an abusive relationship. Dear Jordan… Healing Is Not Amnesia | What Becomes of Your Trauma

2. 

   22 Aug 2026

   Dear Jordan…When Your Body Remembers What Your Mind Has Forgotten | Navigating CPTSD & Self Sabotage

   What if the thing you call self-sabotage is actually your nervous system trying to protect you? In this deeply personal episode of Dear Jordan, Andrea explores the connection between Complex PTSD (CPTSD), self-sabotage, trauma responses, emotional triggers, and the nervous system—and why healing can be so difficult when your body reacts to danger before your conscious mind even understands what is happening. Andrea shares the moment she realized she was living with the effects of complex trauma: sitting safely on a friend’s couch when one facial expression suddenly caused uncontrollable tears and overwhelming panic. It wasn’t until therapy that she understood what her body had recognized before her mind could—the expression reminded her of a look she once saw before being physically hurt, and the room around her made her nervous system feel as though there was no escape. That experience revealed an important truth: sometimes trauma doesn’t return as a memory. It returns as a reaction. Through this letter to her daughter Jordan, Andrea examines how CPTSD can make self-protective behaviors look like self-sabotage. Hyper-independence, avoidance, distrust, overthinking, pushing people away, fear of intimacy, and preparing for abandonment may once have helped us survive—but those same survival responses can interfere with healthy relationships, peace, love, and connection long after the danger has passed. This episode explores the difficult space between trauma and accountability, why familiar does not always mean safe, how triggers can distort our interpretation of the present, and the questions we can begin asking ourselves when the past starts speaking louder than what’s actually happening in front of us. Because sometimes healing begins with realizing: The fear is real. The reaction is real. But the danger may not be. And maybe the question isn’t simply, “Why do I keep sabotaging myself?” Maybe it’s: “What is this part of me still trying to protect me from?” Topics discussed: Complex PTSD (CPTSD), childhood trauma, relationship trauma, self-sabotage, trauma triggers, nervous system dysregulation, fight-flight-freeze response, hypervigilance, emotional regulation, trauma healing, healthy relationships, attachment, therapy, faith and healing, survival mode, emotional abuse recovery, and breaking trauma patterns.

3. 

   14 Aug 2026

   Dear Jordan… Why Healthy Love Can Make You Cry

   What happens when you’ve spent years healing from an unhealthy relationship, finally allow yourself to love again… and suddenly you can’t stop crying? In this episode of Dear Jordan, I talk about something I never expected: feeling safe brought emotions to the surface that I thought I had already dealt with. For years, I confused healing with emotional control. I thought being healed meant being able to move through life without the past affecting me. But after years of avoiding relationships, I discovered that there’s a difference between functioning and truly healing—and sometimes we don’t discover that difference until we finally feel safe. Through my own experience of dating again after trauma, I explore emotional suppression, nervous system regulation, grief, vulnerability, and the unexpected role healthy relationships can play in our healing. Because sometimes the tears don’t mean you’re falling apart. Sometimes they mean your heart finally feels safe enough to stop holding everything together. And maybe healing isn’t something we have to complete before we’re worthy of healthy love. Maybe God sometimes uses safe people to help reveal the places He’s still healing. Dear Jordan… Why Healthy Love Can Make You Cry

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

1 ratings

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Guest appearances

Does not typically book guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.