Episode 11: Coming Home to Yourself Through Courage

When grief, loss, and expectations pull you away from yourself, courage often looks like finding your way back home. In this episode of Courage is Built Here, Justine continues Pathway One, Feel It All, and sits down with her friend Becki Feldmann to talk about emotional honesty, values, faith, and reclaiming self worth after loss.

Becki shares her experience with secondary infertility, four consecutive losses, and the quiet loneliness of carrying grief without sharing it at home or work. She reflects on how losing her sense of self and light became the turning point that led her to faith, values clarity, and learning how to receive love from others instead of doing everything on her own.

Together, Justine and Becki explore what it means to feel emotions without becoming them, how values act as a grounding force in seasons of grief and change, and why recognizing misalignment matters in both personal and professional spaces. They talk about boundaries, apologizing to repair relationships, modeling emotional responsibility for children, and how courage often shows up in small moments of saying no, changing direction, and choosing alignment over expectation.

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✍️ Read the full show notes at https://justinefroelker.com/blog/

Key Takeaways
▪️ Pathway One, Feel It All, begins with values clarity and learning how to feel emotions without becoming them.
▪️ Grief and loss can disconnect us from ourselves, even when we continue functioning on the outside.
▪️ Naming emotions, noticing where they show up in the body, and slowing down helps bring the nervous system back online.
▪️ Faith played a role in Becki’s healing, not as something that pushed her through grief, but as something that brought her back to herself.
▪️ Feeling unseen, unheard, or valued based only on output is a sign of misalignment.
▪️ Recognizing your worth can lead to courageous decisions, including leaving environments that no longer align with your values.
▪️ Values act as a guide for decision making, boundaries, and job satisfaction.
▪️ Misalignment often shows up through emotional and behavioral “tells,” like irritability, exhaustion, or lack of patience.
▪️ Courage can look like apologizing, repairing relationships, and modeling emotional responsibility for children.
▪️ Saying no, changing direction, and using your voice are powerful expressions of courage.

About Justine
Author, Speaker, and Corporate Trainer of Courage
Full of grit and grace, Justine Froelker uses her fiery passion, her story, and the occasional curse word to empower others to show up as their whole selves in their life and work.

Links
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Learn more at https://justinefroelker.com

Chapters
00:00 Introduction
01:10 Pathway One: Feel It All
02:46 Meet Becky Feldman
04:36 Becky's Story of Courage
09:18 The Turning Point and Faith
13:51 Rediscovering Self-Worth
18:13 Aligning Values in Different Spaces
18:46 Personal Responsibility and Job Satisfaction
20:11 The Importance of Core Values
22:34 Recognizing Symptoms of Misalignment
25:41 Parenting and Apologizing
27:05 Understanding Courage and Values
29:59 Connecting and Supporting Others
34:02 Final Thoughts