The Ben and Ashley I Almost Famous Podcast - Will Therapy Help DeAnna Find A Man?

Episode Date: November 3, 2025

Dr. Hillary Goldsher and DeAnna continue their intimate conversation. DeAnna is determined not to repeat the mistakes she made in her marriage in her next relationship - and Dr. Hillary has guidance on how to do that!Plus, DeAnna asks a question all women struggle with: how do you stick up for yourself in a relationship, but not be a b****?!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. In the heat of battle, your squad relies on you. Don't let them down. Unlock elite gaming tech at Lenovo.com. Dominate every match with next level speed, seamless streaming, and performance that won't quit. Push your gameplay beyond performance with Intel Core Ultra processors. For the next era of gaming.

Upgrade to smooth, high-quality streaming with Intel Wi-Fi 6E and maximize game performance with enhanced overclocking. Win the tech search. Power up at Lenovo.com. Johnny Knoxville here Check out Crimeless Hillbilly Heist My new true crime podcast from smartless media Campside media and big money players

It's the true story of the almost perfect crime And the Nimrods who almost pulled it off It was kind of like the perfect storm in a sewer That was dumb Do not follow my example Listen to Crimeless Hillbilly Heist On the IHeart Radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast.

I live below a cult leader and I fear I've angered her. Wait a minute, Sophia. How do you know she's a cult leader? Well, Dakota, luckily it's I'm not afraid of a scary story week on the OK Storytime podcast. So we'll find out soon. This person writes, my neighbor has been blasting music every day and doing dirt rituals. And now my ceiling is collapsing. I try to report them, but things keep getting weirder.

I think they might be part of a cult. Hold up. A real life cult? And what is a dirt ritual? No clue, Dakota. Find out how it ends. Listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Two rich young Americans move to the Costa Rican jungle to start over, but one of them will end up dead and the other tried for murder three times.

It starts with a dream, a nature reserve, and a spectacular new home. But little by little, they lose it. They actually lose it. They sort of went nuts. until one night everything spins out of control listen to hell in heaven on the IHeart Radio app

Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts IHart Podcasts Bring You the Ultimate Summer of Love Tree This is famously available Welcome back to Famously Available Your host Ben Higgins And if you missed part one of this episode, be sure to go back and listen. I've enlisted the help of the incredible

psychologist Dr. Hillary Goldscher to really go in deep with Deanna. Therapy is amazing and beneficial in so many ways, but I think pretty crucial when we are on the path to finding love and learning to love ourselves. I'm excited to hear more from this conversation, so let's dive back in. I continue to talk about my marriage because it's the freshest on my and it was my longest relationship that I've ever been in. And there were lots of things, right? We were on the cycle, that toxic cycle. And towards the end, we just couldn't get off.

We just could not hop off the cycle. There was no. And there, I personally, I could not get to a place anymore of being able to change the way I said something or to be soft anymore, to be soft anymore. it felt exhausting to me. I am an overthinker in general. I can overthink, overthinking. I can take one thought and turn it eight way, sideways in a matter of seconds. And to sit in places where I didn't feel seen or heard created a boiling point for me. It was not a very healthy space for me to sit in. If my partner needed time to process or time to cool down, that time that they needed was a

boiling point for me because I would sit in a moment of just overthinking and, and explosive. There was no soft left to me. My go-to place to react is to be hard, is to be strong because vulnerability is very scary for me. And rightfully so, in a lot of places, my vulnerability has been used against me and by people that I have loved very deeply. So vulnerability is not very easy for me. And so instead of coming from a place and being like, hey, I really love you. I don't want to fight over this. How can I, how can I be better at this situation? To me, and I cannot even lie in this moment. It sounds really awful for anyone listening. To me, that feels weak. I feel like I'm being a little bitch about it.

And I hate that. I hate that. But it's so interesting because with my children, I can do that with my children. Hi, I hear that you're upset right now. I feel that you're really upset. Please tell me what's coming up for you. And I have that with the utmost care and rational thinking. And I mean it.

I mean it. But I have a real struggle with doing that for a grown man. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure there's an intersection of factors. There's one, as I alluded to earlier, a trauma response. If you've had wounds around people that you trusted, hurting you, abandoning you, taking advantage of you, vulnerability becomes a fight or flight moment.

And so one of the ways it sounds like that your body has habituated to that fighter flight is getting hard, you know, so it's protective mode. And it's, it's, I mean, when you think about it, it's, you might not like that I say this, but it's sweet that it's sad, you know, because underneath that is a wounded kid who doesn't want to be hurt again, right? And having a lot of empathy and compassion for that person feels so critical, you know, for that little person that, you know, trusted and got heard. And I think if we conceptualize it that way, that's why it's easy to do that for your kiddos, you know, because it's so easy to see them that way and it's so hard to see yourself that way.

But the more you're able to integrate that that's a part of you, obviously it's not all of you, look at how you move through the world, you know, that that's not the case, but it's a part of you and that when you feel vulnerable and sad, that's as, you know, valid as any of the other feelings that you have. And that trauma response, I imagine, has led you astray in some moments, which is that you show up in a way you don't feel good about, you know. And so it's interesting. I alluded to it before, but that distinction between aggression and advocacy is so important. And that younger part of you might think that aggression is the way to go. That's where you get all your power. Two females talking to each other. I have a love, hate relationship

with it. And I'm hoping that anyone who is listening to us today relates to this. Okay, I'm a woman and I want to advocate for myself and what I believe in, but then I'm a fucking bitch. Because I did. Right? Or I'm a doormat. Right? I'm a doormat. I let it sweep under the rug because I don't want to be viewed as a bitch because I stood for what I believed in and then, you know, who suffers is me? So what is the fine line to teeter there

and I'm not just asking for myself. I feel like a really great relationship with a lot of the listeners and the women that follow me on social media and they share these same things with me because the truth is like I feel those things myself. What is the fine line to teeter there? Because, right, I'm not trying to be a bitch

but because I'm a woman and I speak up for myself well, then I'm too much. So what's the fine line there? Yeah, I mean, of course, there isn't like a perfect calculation. And what I'm about to say might feel like a cop-up, but hang with me. I think mostly the fine line is going to be felt internally. Because I think we know when we're in advocacy mode, when we're grounded, when we're clear in our communication, and when we're standing up for what we know is right.

and when we've sort of moved into territory where we're being more defensive and looking to wound someone else, right? I think we often know where it's crossed over. So I would say looking internally for like that uncomfortable feeling of like, oh, I'm not feeling so good about this is one piece to keep in mind. The other sort of guiding tenants that I like to think of is being able to state what you want, what your expectation is, but doing it in a digestible way. What does that mean? It means like keeping a neutral tone, using clear words, and trying to think about speaking to

someone with respect, even if we wildly disagree or even if they're in the middle of hurting us. Because to me, from a clinical and personal standpoint, there's nothing more empowering than staying in calm and groundedness and integrity even when you're upset. And so being able to say, I won't let you speak to me that way. It's not happening. Not now. You can either adjust and reset and try again or I'm leaving. To me, that's advocacy.

I mean, those are strong words and creating a boundary for like, I'm not letting anyone. I am not talking about letting someone disrespect you or treat you in a way that is outside of your value. Absolutely not. But I am talking about like delivering that message in a calm, clear way to the extent possible, whenever possible. And it's ultimately. for us, really. I mean, sure, it's sort of the quote, right thing to do to the person in front of us. And I mean, they may be awful. But we feel more grounded when we stay in that centered place inside of us. And then it carries through to other aspects of our life. Because when we become dysregulated into the like aggressive aggression part, we just don't

feel like ourselves. We feel disassembled and disempowered. And I feel like we, I mean, men and women alike, often mistake aggression for power when it actually ends up feeling disempowering. We feel shame and eventually paralysis. But when we stay in advocacy, is what I like to call it. Much more plain spoken, right? Like an out-of-body experience. Yes. To get to that point of complete regulation.

Yes. And I want to say this because those listening, and this is an obvious next question, which is like, okay, great, that sounds super aspirational. But what about when I don't? because we're all not going to at times. We're all going to get triggered. We're all going to have a trauma response. Someone's going to be really, really awful one too many times.

And we show up in a way that we don't feel good about. And I love to always say that we can always go back, right? We can always go back, even if the person has heard us, even if we're deciding we're not wanting to be with that person anymore. We can still say, for our sake, less than for theirs, some version of like what I was saying earlier because I love this phrasing. And, you know, my message was on point, like not changing anything about what I was trying to convey to you, but I don't like the way I said it. And, you know, I want to take responsibility for that. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for it. I was out of integrity. I was like out of how I wanted to show up. And that's about us. And the more we do that, the more we kind of cobble together a sense of self that is very grounding and that we can return to again and again is like a safe haven. Internally, we don't feel as safe when we ourselves are so dysregulated or aggressive. It just doesn't feel. is safe to be inside our skin. So I like to advocate for this as a self-advocacy proposition.

It's not for the other. And so that's why the conceptualization doesn't change in terms of how bad the other is. It's really for us. Yeah. Okay. I love everything that you said, but I am also going to know that it's way easier to said than done. Exactly why I just said what I said, right? And sometimes I get just exhausted with myself because I feel. like I do so much work on me and I do so much work on my healing because I really want to be healthy and well for myself, for my children, for hopefully another relationship that I get exhausted with with the amount of work I do on myself. And then you know what else? I say this all the time. I get exhausted with being the only person doing the work at every turn doing all of the

therapy, doing all of the things because I want to be better. It becomes exhausting to have to deal with people who are not also putting in the time and effort. But I wanted to, I know we have a few minutes left. And I'm just so grateful that you did this. I was joking with Heather, our producer, because she was like, we only have this amount of time. And I was like, we all know I can talk to a wall. I could do this. So we will have to have you back because I love stuff like this. And I find them so healing and so helpful. But it's obviously a dating podcast. And that's the place where I am in my life. And I didn't, I didn't date for some time. I've been divorced for and not with my ex-husband for some time. And I really spent some space with myself trying to heal. I knew that I wasn't whole.

Therefore, I could not possibly take on anyone else. And I do like to do that. I like to give my full self to any relationship. And I don't just mean with the opposite sex. I mean in friendships or with my family or anybody else. And so I knew that there was a lot of work to be done. now that I am moving into that space of wanting to find someone, I'm dealing with two things here. A, there's the frustration with my God. I'm like, okay, when is it going to happen for me, Lord? And I'm not alone. I imagine many women say that. But I am asking you and for everyone else listening who is there with me, how do we do this, the dating piece and not make the same mistake twice? I don't ever want to relive what I have gone through again. I don't want to make the same

mistake twice. And I don't think I will because I learn and I grow. But like, what can I do moving into a dating space? And maybe I'll preface that with I'm not looking to be someone's side piece. I'm not looking to casually date for fun. I'm not looking for just a sexual-based relationship. I'm looking for someone to share life with, to do life with. I am looking for a partner. that's what I really want. And so I'm hoping maybe you could share with me, how do I not make the same mistakes twice? How can I do this and find a really wonderful, valuable relationship next?

I love this question. So, again, I'm going to think about it, macro and micro. That advocacy piece that we were just talking about applies here on the macro basis. don't be afraid to say what it is you're looking for and what it is you want when you're on dates, when you're vetting, when you're getting to know someone. I mean, obviously we're not going to open with like, hi, I want to get married and I want this kind of relationship. But quickly, I mean, date two, three, starting to talk about, I'm in a phase, I'm in

a season of my life where I just know myself. I know who I am. I know what I want. And like, I want a relationship that has depth. I want a relationship that is with someone that's interested in emotional intimacy and, like, you know, working through stuff, like cares about what our communication looks like. Not afraid to say it. I was going to say it out loud if that, like, doesn't resonate. Cool. Like, let's finish our coffee and, like, wish each other well, right? There's something that is both grounding about that kind of advocacy. And most men report that there's something very attractive about a woman being able to speak her truth that way with confidence. And it sounds cliche, but if someone hears you speak a version of this and is scared off or turned off, I mean, obviously, that wouldn't be your person. You really want someone who hears this from you and is intrigued and interested and wants to hear and know more.

So being an advocate for what you want and feeling confident like you have a right to do so is really important. I think it's important to believe people when they say things. So if someone seems confused when you talk about what I just was alluding to or directly says like, yeah, you know, I've never been in therapy or like I had never really thought about that or that's not exactly my kind of thing. But maybe believe what they say if that doesn't resonate, if they reflect on the fact that that isn't kind of where they've been in the past or what their particular focus is on, believe them. We have a responsibility given that we're like managing our love life with intention to pay attention to those things. And that can mean walking away from potential. But if you're looking for something to be different, you have to do something differently. And so you really have to be present to what people are saying and believe them and turn

the other way when it's not aligned. I mean, it's not that black and white or dichotomous, of course, often. But when it is, pay attention to it. In the heat of battle, your squad relies on you. Don't let them down. Unlock elite gaming tech at Lenovo.com. Dominate every match with next level speed, seamless streaming, and performance that won't quit.

Push your gameplay beyond performance with Intel Core Ultra processors for the next era of gaming. Upgrade to smooth high-quality streaming with Intel Wi-Fi 6E and maximize game performance with enhanced overclocking. Win the tech search. Power up at Lenovo.com. The podcast is the story of two men, bound by injustice, of a city haunted by its secrets, and the quest for redemption, no matter the price.

White victim, female, pretty, wealthy, black defendant. Chicago, a white woman's murder, a black man behind bars, for a crime he didn't commit. I got 90 years for killing somebody I have never seen. He says the police are his friends, and then that's it. they turn on it. A corrupt detective. How he was interrogated the techniques. That's crazy.

A snitch and a life stolen. They got the wrong guy. But on the inside, Lee Harris finds an ally in his celly, Robert, who swears to tell the truth about what happened to Lee and free his friend. And if you're with me, your goal to, I'll take care of you. I'm going to be with you. You stuck with me for life. Listen to the Crying Wolf podcast, starting on October 26.

second on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Here we go. Hey, I'm Cal Penn, and on my new podcast, Here We Go Again, we'll take today's trends and headlines and ask, why does history keep repeating itself? You may know me as the second hottest actor from the Harold and Kumar movies, but I'm also an author, a White House staffer, and as of like 15 seconds ago, a podcast host. Along the way, I've made some friends who are experts in science, politics, and pop culture. And each week, one of them will be joining me to answer my burning questions.

Like, are we heading towards another financial crash like in 08? Is non-monogamy back in style? And how come there's never a gate ready for your flight when it lands like two minutes early? We've got guests like Pete Buttigieg, Stacey Abrams, Lili Singh, and Bill Nye. When you start weaponizing outer space, things can potentially, go really wrong. Look, the world can seem pretty scary right now, because it is. But my goal here is for you to listen and feel a little better about the future.

Listen and subscribe to Here We Go Again with Cal Penn on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I live below a cult leader, and I fear I've angered her. Well, wait a minute, Sophia. How do you know she's a cult leader? Well, Dakota, luckily it's I'm not afraid of a scary story week on the OK Storytime podcast, so you'll find out soon. This person writes, my neighbor's been blasting music every day and doing dirt rituals and now my ceiling is collapsing. I try to report them, but things keep getting weirder. I think they may be part of a cult. Hold up, Sophia, a real-life cult? And what is a dirt ritual? No clue. But

according to this person, contractors are tearing down the patio to find out what's going on with their ceiling and her neighbors are not happy. Well, she needs to report them ASAP. She did. And now they've been confronting her in really creepy ways all the time. So do we find out if this person survives their neighborhood cult or not? To hear the explosive finale, listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Dating is exhausting. Relationships are exhausting.

The things that you have to consciously think of to make sure you're getting what you want and your needs are met as well as caring for another human being and making sure their needs are met and that you're in a really a good place enough to do so. It truly is exhausting. It takes up, the other thing I was going to say is kind of on the micro level is mindfulness, which is to your point why it's so exhausting. It is. Am I mindful? Am I all healed and I'm going to be okay? Well, what you're asking is actually a good, springboard for me to say what I was going to say, which it might sound further exhausting. But to your point that you were saying at the beginning, it's not dichotomous.

It's not like, I'm healed and now I'm done, right? It's a lifelong pursuit to be aware of how we're moving through the world and how we show up affects other people and to be open to feedback and to stand outside of our feelings and advocate for them and talk about them to take responsibility in terms of how we affect other people. It's an ongoing pursuit. And so I always hesitant when people try to think about it. Am I ready?

Am I healed? It's not an unworthy set of questions to ask oneself, but it's really an ongoing thing. And so I think the mindfulness piece of like, how am I showing up and how do I feel about it? And when I show up in a way that I don't feel good about, instead of like feeling ashamed and then kind of suppressing or ignoring. are you really looking at it. Oh, I got kind of disregulated there. I wonder what happened. Like what was going on for me?

What trauma response? What vulnerability was coming up for me? And like, how might I do that differently next time? You have to continuously bravely interact with those parts of yourself that are like wounded or scared or afraid or shut down or do get dysregulated. That's all of us, by the way. So if we're not building a relationship with those hard parts of ourselves, it's going to be harder to show up the way that we want to in a relationship.

So the mindfulness is a key part as you're going through. I'm so glad that you said that because there is a moment where I get a little frustrated with myself. And I think, okay, my little daddy issues, right, my abandonment stuff. That's not going to carry me into the next relationship. It's not going to go with me. But the truth of the matter is some of those things are deep wounds. And I am a visual person. And I say this in a sense of like when you look at a scar on your body, the scar is there.

It's never going to leave, right? there is a scar here it's always going to be there it's never going to leave and that that is the truth of what is deep in my soul there are scars they are there those things happen to me they can be really beautiful but they can also get a hold of me at times too and take over um and those are things good and bad that i do carry into every other relationship and i'm only saying this out loud to you because i have to tell myself and maybe i'm telling this little girl that needs to be nurtured is like, I don't need to be ashamed of those things. Right. And I was, I was carrying so much and was shamed so much for these trauma things that I brought up that the truth is, and tell me if I'm wrong,

Dr. Hillary, but like the truth is, I don't have to be ashamed of these things. I have scars. I have things that I have taken from every relationship that will go with me into other ones. And there is beauty in that, correct? the ultimate in self-advocacy what you're doing right now. I actually like got the chills. Yes, yes, yes, yes. I mean, the more we build a relationship with those parts of ourselves, I mean like a strong, loving relationship with those parts of ourselves, not just be like, okay, I guess they can be around, but like come closer, come in, let me hold you as we move through. Integration, that those are parts of ourselves, that we are going to have to care for,

love, manage, and sometimes they're going to be in the driver's seat and we're going to gently be like, oops, you ended up in the driver seat. You're not supposed to drive anymore. So I'm going to gently put you in the back and take over again. Right. So owning that, like, yes, I have parts of myself that are, that parts of myself that are wounded and parts of myself that will feel easily abandoned or easily dismissed. And those are things I have to watch and I have to manage. But I'm not shaming them when they come up. No, I expect them to come up. So I greet them with kindness and I welcome them in. I try to get to know them better and help them heal.

Like if one of your kiddos came and said they were in pain about something that happened at school, you wouldn't be like, are you still talking about that? You know, still? That happened yesterday. That happened last year. You would hold space for as long as it hurts. And it's the same thing, you know, exponentially with trauma. So expecting those things to come up and holding it lovingly rather than with shame changes

everything because the minute we apply shame to those parts of ourselves, it gets suppressed and we go into like a paralysis. Then we have no choices. And so then we get stuck in those responses we don't feel good about as opposed to like, yep, there that is again. And I'm going to make amends if that part of me hurts someone else. And then I'm going to take good care of it and decide like what would advocacy look like in this moment and like keep trying, keep practicing. That's human. oh it's it's the the dirty things i call them the dirty things the shame the guilt the fear the shame the guilt and the fear and i i am one and i can only speak for myself but i am one who leads with those things so thank you for right i don't want to feel like a broken little girl i don't want

anyone else to feel like a broken little girl right we each have a story and we get to take that and hopefully learn and grow from it so i are just really grateful for for the conversation with you. I jote with Heather. She knows me well. I'm like, we need a whole afternoon. I'm all all the healing, you know, and I'm sure they're just like, it's time for you to shut your mouth now. I'm really, really grateful, Dr. Hiller. Thank you for doing this. Thank you for taking the time to talk with me. We really should record again, because there's just so many nuggets of truth and we can't possibly do this in a 45 minute time period. And I'm grateful for you and your knowledge and therapy. advocate for mental and emotional well-being. And I'm grateful for people who can do that. So I think

if we've taken anything from this is that I can be a licensed therapist. I think that's clearly the conclusion. Yes. Well, thank you for being so vulnerable because it allows us to talk about things that are hard to talk about and people don't always get to be like a witness to these kinds of dialogues, you know. So I really appreciate your candor. Thanks. Thank you. So nice to see to sit with you today. Thank you. You too. Thanks for giving me your time. All right. Bye-bye. It's been jumping back in here. Wow. Dr. Hillary, thank you so much for being a part of this conversation. Deanna, thank you so much for opening up on another level to our listeners who also might be in your situation, but also allowing yourself to be incredibly vulnerable in this journey

with us. We'll be back with more famously available very soon. that won't quit. Push your gameplay beyond performance with Intel core ultra-processors for the next era of gaming. Upgrade to smooth high-quality streaming with Intel Wi-Fi 6E and maximize game performance with enhanced overclocking. Win the tech search. Power up at Lenovo.com. Lenovo, Lenovo. Johnny Knoxville here. Check out Crimeless, Hillbilly Heist, my new True Crime podcast from Smartless Media, Campside Media, and Big Money Players. It's the true story of the almost perfect crime and the Nimrods who almost pulled it off. It was kind of like the perfect storm in a sewer.

That was dumb. Do not follow my example. Listen to Crimless, Hillbilly Heist on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I live below a cult leader and I fear I've angered her. Wait a minute, Sophia. How do you know she's a cult leader? Well, Dakota, luckily it's I'm not afraid of a scary story week on the

Okay Storytime podcast, so we'll find out soon. This person writes, My neighbor has been blasting music every day and doing dirt rituals, and now my ceiling is collapsing. I try to report them, but things keep getting weirder. I think they might be part of a cult. Hold up, a real life cult? And what is a dirt ritual?

No clue, Dakota. To find out how it ends, listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Two rich young Americans move to the Costa Rican jungle to start over, but one of them will end up dead and the other tried for murder three times. It starts with a dream, a nature reserve and a spectacular new home. But little by little, they lose it. They actually lose it. They sort of went nuts. Until one night, everything spins out of control. Listen to Hell in Heaven on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your

podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast.