Before I was a mother, I was a wife.

And I entered marriage believing my job was to be good—not safe, not cherished, not protected.

In this episode of Dear Jordan, I explore how early beliefs, religious conditioning, and trauma shaped my understanding of submission, marriage, and worth. This letter unpacks the psychological impact of negative identity labels, trauma bonding, and why so many women confuse endurance with faithfulness.

Through a blend of personal story, Christian theology, and trauma-informed insight, this episode challenges the idea that submission requires silence, self-abandonment, or suffering. We talk about nervous system safety, boundaries after abuse, and what happens when healing disrupts familiar power dynamics.

This episode is for women who are:

• Healing from emotional, spiritual, or domestic abuse

• Navigating faith after trauma

• Learning to set boundaries without guilt

• Choosing peace over proximity

• Recovering from people-pleasing and survival mode

This letter is for my daughter, Jordan—but it’s also for anyone learning that growth does not require permission from the people who benefited from your silence.

Peace is not selfish.

Boundaries are not betrayal.

Healing does not make you cold—it makes you honest.

Dear Jordan is a letter-style podcast about faith, healing, motherhood, trauma recovery, and becoming who you were always meant to be—without shrinking to survive.

This letter began with a long week, a snowstorm, a broken wrist that never quite lets me forget it exists, and a moment in a restaurant that forced me to pause and look at myself through my children’s eyes.

In this letter, I talk to you about success—not the kind that’s measured by titles, timelines, or other people’s opinions, but the kind that’s rooted in purpose.

We live in a world that’s obsessed with outcomes. With checking boxes. With proving that time was “well spent.” And when life doesn’t unfold the way we planned, it’s easy to label entire years as wasted. I’ve done that myself. More than once.

But purpose has a way of rewriting that narrative.

In this episode, I reflect on what it really means to succeed, why alignment matters more than achievement, and how no season—no matter how confusing, painful, or quiet—was ever empty if purpose was still at work beneath the surface. This letter is about letting go of regret, redefining success, and learning to trust that God wastes nothing, even when we don’t yet understand the why.

This one is for the years that didn’t look impressive…
and the lives that turned out meaningful anyway.

In this episode of Dear Jordan, I write a letter about responsibility—the kind that comes long before a baby ever does.

This isn’t a conversation about love or chemistry. It’s about the weight of choices that have the potential to create life, and how rarely we’re taught to slow down and consider what those choices actually require. Through personal experience, psychological truth, and biblical wisdom, I explore what it means to choose wisely when intimacy can lead to permanence.

This letter reflects on pregnancy, partnership, emotional maturity, and the realities of co-creating a life with another human being. It examines how culture minimizes sex, how biology and attachment don’t, and why the character of the person you create life with matters far more than attraction or timing.

This episode is not about blame or fear. It’s about awareness—so wisdom doesn’t always have to come after consequence.

If you’ve ever felt the weight of decisions made too quickly, or wished someone had spoken honestly before permanence entered the room, this letter is for you.

Marriage is often sold as a feeling. A milestone. A natural next step after love.

In this letter, I slow things down and talk honestly about what marriage actually is — not as a fairytale, but as a spiritual covenant, an emotional partnership, a psychological merging, a legal contract, and a financial commitment.

This episode is a reflection on the things I didn’t fully understand before I said “I do,” and the lessons I learned by living through them. I share how love alone is not enough to sustain a marriage, why patience matters more than passion, how emotional and psychological mismatches surface once commitment is real, and what it means to legally and financially bind your life to another person.

This letter isn’t written to discourage marriage. It’s written to bring clarity — especially for the version of my daughter who will one day stand at the edge of big decisions, and for anyone listening who wishes someone had explained these things before they learned them the hard way.

If you’ve ever wondered why marriage feels heavier than it was described…
If you’ve questioned whether love should be enough…
Or if you’re navigating the aftermath of a commitment you entered without all the information…

This letter is for you.

In this episode of Dear Jordan, I write a letter about love—the kind we hope for, the kind we misunderstand, and the kind we often learn the hard way.

I reflect on how early experiences shape our understanding of love, how grief and loss can change what we reach for, and how feelings that look like love can sometimes be chemistry, familiarity, or survival instincts in disguise. Through personal reflection, psychological insight, and biblical grounding, this letter explores the difference between attention and affection, intensity and devotion, sacrifice and self-abandonment.

This episode isn’t about giving rules or telling anyone what to do. It’s about slowing down long enough to recognize patterns, to understand why certain relationships feel powerful but unsafe, and to learn how discernment protects both the heart and the spirit.

At its core, this letter is about learning that healthy love doesn’t confuse, rush, or destabilize. It brings clarity, safety, and peace. And it begins—not with another person—but with knowing yourself.

Written for my daughter, Jordan, and shared with anyone who has ever questioned what love is supposed to feel like, this episode is an invitation to choose love that feels like safety, not survival.

In this first letter, I explain why I'm writing these letters at all. Not as advice. Not as a how-to. But as a way of making sense of the things of the things I didn't understand while I was living them.

This is about the conversations I didn't know how to have, the lessons that came too late, and the truths that only surfaced after life forced me to slow down and look back. Writing these letters is my way of giving meaning to the moments that shaped me and saying the things I once needed to hear.

This is where is begins. Not with answers, but with honesty.

Sincerely,

Andrea, mother of Mark Angel, Nathan, Jordan and Joel

Certified Mental Health Coach

A Forever Student of Life

Book a session with me via:

vibly.io/experts/andrea-manajo

Dear Jordan... is a letter-style podcast where I speak to my daughter about the lessons I learned the hard way — the truths I wish someone had told me before life, loss, and trauma did the teaching for me.

This series is about honesty, healing, and the quiet wisdom that comes from surviving what you never thought you would. It’s for anyone who’s had to grow up too fast, rebuild themselves, or learn to trust their own voice again.

New episodes begin January 1, 2026.