In this episode of Practicing Love, Shana James and Hannah Chapman explore the hidden dynamics that cause couples to talk past each other, shut down, or feel chronically misunderstood. Drawing from vulnerable relationship experiences and decades of coaching, this conversation illuminates how defensive communication forms, what matters more than “being right,” and how to rebuild connection over time.
Find out how to have the best love and sex of your life!
Why Communication Breaks Down in Long-Term Relationships — And How to Rebuild Connection: Show Notes
If you’ve ever found yourself stuck in the same painful communication loop with a partner, where you disconnect, repair, feel hopeful, and then end up right back in the same place…this week’s Practicing Love episode will feel like a relief, as you recognize you are NOT alone!
I’m joined by Hannah Chapman, a brilliant financial planner who has also done deep emotional and spiritual work. She opens up about her 24-year relationship and how it feels like they’ve had multiple relationships inside the one. She talks about the cycles that nearly broke them, especially struggling with communication, emotional withdrawal, defensiveness, and the longing to feel understood and connected.
Hannah is incredibly open, in a way that most people never reveal. She and her husband have figured out their patterns and are practicing love. I’m so grateful you get to learn from her!
If you’ve ever wondered:
- “Why do we keep repeating this same cycle?”
- “Why does s/he withdraw just when I need her/him most?”
- “How do we rebuild safety and connection after years together?”
This episode gets to the heart of:
1. Defensive vs. Open Communication (“You’re doing this to me” vs. “Here’s what’s happening inside me”)
We talk about why even well-intentioned couples revert to defending, shutting down, or withdrawing, and how quickly this kills intimacy. We talk about how Hannah and her husband are practicing speaking from curiosity and emotional transparency, instead of accusation and blame, even when they’re hurting. This opens the door to real closeness again.
2. Disconnection vs. Dysregulation
From the outside, Hannah’s husband looked like he was stonewalling. On the inside though, he was overwhelmed and falling into what he described as an “emotional black hole.” Once they discussed this with compassion, and understood each other, they could practice stopping the downward spiral.
3. Withholding vs. Expressing Your Full Self
Hannah shares her realization about her habit of retreating and hiding parts of herself when she felt misunderstood or dismissed, and what she now practices to stop intimacy from fading.
4. Surface-level fixes vs. Deep nervous-system work
Instead of putting a bandaid on disagreements or disconnection, they turned to meditation, inner healing, and help from a guide. These allowed them to connect with more grounding, and emotional regulation, rather than fear or reactivity. It helped them return to the love they have for each other, rather than getting stuck in what was in the way.
This is a very real and honest conversation about what long-term love actually takes. It’s not about perfection, or “never fighting.” It’s about learning to connect and discover each other’s deeper truths, especially in the hard moments.
This episode will give you clarity, compassion, and a map forward. Check out Hannah’s links on the podcast page, and if you get stuck in painful cycles and get free from it, schedule a time to talk with me here.
Links:
Connect with Shana James
Best love and sex of your life quiz
Get a Free copy of Honest Sex: A Passionate Path to Deepen Connection and Keep Relationships Alive.
Whether you’re dating or in a relationship it shows you how to take the self-doubt, struggle and shame out of your love life.
💘 If you’re looking for love:
Take this quiz: Find Love With More Ease and Joy
🔥 If you’re dating or in a relationship and you want more connection or intimacy:
Take this quiz: What Keeps You From Having the Best Love and Sex of Your Life?
Each quiz only takes a few minutes, and give you a personalized report of how you can have more of the love and intimacy you want.
Connect with Hannah
Take Shana’s quiz to see what may be blocking you from finding love
Bio:
Hannah is a Certified Financial Planner Professional (CFP), Accredited Portfolio Management Advisor (APMA), and Chartered Retirement Planning Counselor (CRPC), and a fiduciary for her clients at all times, in all ways. In that time she has managed a lot of money, written thousands of financial plans for all kinds of people from executives to teachers to business owners, and learned a whole lot about herself and the world around me. Of all the things she’s learned, the single most important thing is this…
How you feel about your money is more important than the strategies you have in place to make or manage it.
And because of that, it takes a holistic approach that combines the logical and data driven side of financial planning and business strategy with the emotional and spiritual aspects of financial decision making and money mindset to create true financial transformation.
Hannah founded X-squared Wealth Planning to give people based in the USA holistic financial guidance that actually helps them create the life and business of their dreams, and then founded Expansive CEO to help people worldwide with their money mindset and business financial strategy. In both companies, you will find her passion for getting to know yourself deeply through frameworks like Human Design and Gene Key exploration. Hannah believes you deserve to live in prosperity, which means being able to give generously of your time, money, and energy to the people and causes you care about from a place of abundance and overflow. And she believes one way to get there is to help you create a more peaceful and stable relationship with money in all areas of your life.
Transcript:
Shana James (00:00)
Hello and welcome to this episode of Practicing Love. I’m your host, Shana James, here to talk about how to have the best love and sex of your life after 40—and everything it takes to get there.
My stance is that we’re always practicing. Even those of us who study communication, psychology, spirituality, and personal growth—we’re still practicing.
I have an amazing woman with us today, Hannah Chapman. We’re going to talk about her relationship, what she’s practicing, and explore struggles in communication—especially the difference between defensive communication and open communication, and so much more.
A quick introduction: Hannah is a Certified Financial Planner, an Accredited Portfolio Management Advisor, and a Chartered Retirement Planning Counselor. She clearly has a whip-smart brain and works deeply in the financial world. She also works with Human Design and Gene Keys—which I wouldn’t even call personality typing systems anymore. How do you define them?
Hannah Chapman, CFP (01:11)
Yeah, I mean, technically they’re considered personality profiles, I guess.
Shana James (01:16)
Right. But they go so much deeper than that. I know you also do inner child healing, and I just love that you have this incredible range—you can navigate money and the external world and the inner world. You’re my hero.
Thank you so much for being here and for being willing to be vulnerable about your relationship.
Hannah Chapman, CFP (01:39)
Thank you, Shana. This is such an important topic to me. I’ve been in the financial world since 2006—so about 19 years now.
One thing I know for sure is how important communication is. It’s essential for people to be able to talk about money—and honestly, to talk at all. Even talking about goals and dreams.
When I sat with couples, so many didn’t have a shared vision. One partner would have all the vision, and the other would be like, “Yeah, I guess.” And you could see it from ten miles away—that was going to blow up.
Shana James (02:33)
Yes. Learning how to have those conversations is so important. There’s a huge difference between “Yeah, I’ll go along with that” and “Yes, I really want this.”
Or between “Why the hell are you doing that?” and “I’m curious about that decision.” Money, love, and sex are some of the biggest trigger topics.
Hannah Chapman, CFP (02:55)
Yeah. It’s such a tender topic.
A lot of people—especially in dating—will have sex before they talk about money. You might go on a date and sleep with someone before you even know how much they make or what their financial life looks like. It’s such a different kind of taboo.
Shana James (03:09)
Wow. That’s so true.
Hannah Chapman, CFP (03:23)
Yeah. It’s fascinating—and it’s so important to be able to talk about it.
Shana James (03:24)
Absolutely.
I usually start by asking: what kind of relationship are you in right now? How long have you been together? You mentioned you’ve been married about 19 years?
Hannah Chapman, CFP (03:44)
Yes. My husband and I have been married for 19 years. We’ve been together for 24. We started dating our senior year of high school—we graduated in 2002.
Shana James (03:50)
Wow. Nice.
Hannah Chapman, CFP (04:00)
We really became friends our junior year. We went to college together and got married right after I graduated.
Shana James (04:07)
It’s amazing when it goes back that far.
Hannah Chapman, CFP (04:08)
Right? And now we have three kids.
Shana James (04:18)
Your lives have been intertwined for a very long time.
Hannah Chapman, CFP (04:22)
Yes. We have a 14-year-old, a 12-year-old, and a 10-year-old—girl, boy, girl.
Our older two are on the autism spectrum—what they might call level one. They’re high-functioning in many ways, but when they were younger, it was incredibly challenging. Understanding their needs, responding to them, and not listening to all the outside voices saying, “Don’t they need this?”—they were clearly different kids.
Shana James (04:49)
Yes. They weren’t neurotypical kids. I can really relate to that.
Hannah Chapman, CFP (05:09)
Over these 24 years, we’ve had many relationships within our relationship. We’ve gone through many phases.
A lot of people go through cycles where they hurt each other, break up, grow, and try again. We did all of that—but within the same relationship.
Shana James (05:18)
That’s so courageous. And what I hear is that you’ve grown together. You didn’t just hunker down and say, “This is who I am.” You’ve kept asking: who am I now? Who are we now? How do we do this together?
Hannah Chapman, CFP (05:36)
Exactly.
There have been multiple moments of what I’d call “getting to know you again” conversations. One really stands out—it was in 2015. I had all these questions written down, and I started asking him.
At one point he stopped and said, “I bet we’ll have these conversations many more times.”
Shana James (06:34)
I love that. To me, that says you were on the same page. Not “Why are you asking me this?” but “Yes, this is part of us.”
Hannah Chapman, CFP (06:52)
Yes—and being willing to meet each other when it’s hard.
Those moments of getting to know each other again usually came after periods of grief and difficulty.
Shana James (06:57)
Yeah. Can you give an example of what that looked like—when one of you was willing to meet the other even in the challenge?
Hannah Chapman, CFP (07:22)
Sure. The biggest example was the cycle we used to get stuck in.
I think John Gottman talks about this honeymoon cycle—things are good, something happens, there’s disconnection, and then reconciliation. Ideally, most of the cycle is good, with just a small dip.
But after I started my business in 2021—after 19 years in financial services—I went out on my own. It was a huge leap. I was working incredibly hard and was very stressed.
Shana James (08:30)
A big leap.
Hannah Chapman, CFP (08:39)
Yes. And at the same time, I discovered how much inner child healing I needed to do to keep moving forward—to build the business I knew I was capable of, the one my heart knew I was meant to create.
Shana James (09:02)
I love that distinction—knowing what you’re capable of while also recognizing the old wounds and self-doubt that get in the way.
Hannah Chapman, CFP (09:22)
Exactly. That next year was intense—so much healing, so much self-discovery, really listening to my heart for the first time.
Shana James (09:37)
And I imagine it wasn’t pretty. Healing is often messy—like, “Oh shit, I have to look at that.”
Hannah Chapman, CFP (09:42)
Yeah. It was more like screaming into pillows, crying, and finally feeling things I’d suppressed for years.
And during that time, Adam—my husband—and I were really learning how to regulate ourselves. I was learning that if I started to feel shaky or worked up, I had to step away and meditate. So I would literally take five- to ten-minute meditation breaks, many times throughout the day, whenever I felt my nervous system getting overwhelmed.
Shana James (10:17)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Yes.
That’s amazing—to be able to choose that.
Hannah Chapman, CFP (10:30)
Right, exactly. And I was prioritizing that. He was interested, but also a little confused—like, why are you taking so much time for yourself? That was coming up too.
And going back to that cycle—we’d have the “we’re good” honeymoon period…
Shana James (10:39)
Right. Yeah.
Hannah Chapman, CFP (10:49)
…and it was getting shorter and shorter. The break would happen, there’d be more disconnection, then we’d repair and be fine. But that honeymoon period kept shrinking.
Shana James (10:51)
Shorter and—yes.
Hannah Chapman, CFP (11:01)
We literally had less than 24 hours before it would trigger again.
To be clear, our cycle was never abusive. I grew up in a home with abuse—verbal, emotional, physical—so I’m very familiar with what that looks and feels like. That was never our dynamic. And if someone is in that kind of dynamic—
Shana James (11:20)
Get help.
Hannah Chapman, CFP (11:29)
Absolutely. This is not a message to stay through abuse.
What would happen for us was more like we’d lose all connection. From his perspective, he described it as falling into a black hole emotionally—like he didn’t know how to find his way back out. From the outside, it might have looked like stonewalling.
Shana James (11:55)
But from the inside, he was lost in there and couldn’t find his way back to you.
Hannah Chapman, CFP (11:55)
Right. The anger would turn inward. He’d go inside himself and not know how to climb back out on his own.
Shana James (12:07)
Right.
One thing I hear from men a lot is the fear of letting anger out because they’re afraid of doing harm with it. That fear can create that internal black hole—I have to contain this so I don’t destroy something.
Hannah Chapman, CFP (12:17)
Yes. That feels very accurate for him.
And on my side, there was the anxious attachment piece. I think I actually have more disorganized attachment because of how I was raised. But it was that anxiety of when is he coming back? And knowing that if I pushed, he’d go further in.
Shana James (12:39)
Left abandoned.
Hannah Chapman, CFP (12:56)
Exactly. So I’d wait and pause, not knowing when to reach back out. He was stuck in his spiral until I eventually broke—after days, a week, sometimes two weeks—and said, I can’t take this. I need to understand what happened. How do we fix this?
That would start the repair, and then we’d be back in the honeymoon phase.
Shana James (13:15)
Yeah. Yep.
Hannah Chapman, CFP (13:24)
I started sending him articles, trying to explain how it felt to me. It felt like stonewalling. If you’re familiar with John Gottman, that’s one of the Four Horsemen of the relationship apocalypse. I was trying to communicate how painful it was.
That’s when he told me, I’m not doing this on purpose. I’m not trying to manipulate anything. I just don’t know how to get out of it.
Shana James (13:57)
Yes. And that’s so important—being able to communicate without assumptions. You can say, It feels like stonewalling out here, and also hear him say, I’m not doing it on purpose.
In a deeper disconnection, someone might respond with blame or shame. But it sounds like you could meet him with some curiosity.
Hannah Chapman, CFP (14:35)
Yes. And that was partly because I was doing so much internal work at the time.
After one repair where we had less than 24 hours of connection before disconnecting again—that was the final straw for me. I told him I wanted a divorce.
I don’t threaten things. I’m not hyperbolic. But I was done with the cycle of connection and disconnection because it took so much out of me. My whole system was trying to suppress that pain just so I could function.
Shana James (15:15)
Mmm. Wow. Yes.
Hannah Chapman, CFP (15:27)
It was exhausting.
Shana James (15:31)
It’s so painful. It drains energy from parenting, career—everything. I see this with so many couples where divorce feels like the only option if they can’t break the cycle.
Hannah Chapman, CFP (16:00)
Exactly. I told him it felt like a USB drive—you just disconnect from me. I have no insight into what you’re feeling.
Shana James (16:18)
Like you’re gone, and you’re left alone.
Hannah Chapman, CFP (16:23)
Yes. There’s no connection until you choose to come back.
Shana James (16:26)
And I imagine that feels helpless—like you can’t reach him.
This is such a classic Practicing Love moment. You’re living the cycle. Mapping these cycles—where you go, where your partner goes, where the hurt and anger live—is so powerful.
So what changed? You’re not divorced. What helped you believe something different was possible?
Hannah Chapman, CFP (16:49)
After that conversation, I was very clear. I didn’t say I’m thinking about this. I said, This is what I need.
I hadn’t hired a lawyer—it wasn’t papers—but I was serious. We had a deep conversation that night. He asked, Can we keep trying?
I said, Can we build something new?
And very honestly, he said, I don’t know if that’s possible.
Shana James (18:05)
Was he doing growth work at that time too, or was that just not his orientation?
Hannah Chapman, CFP (18:10)
Not in the same way. What helped him was the Waking Up app with Sam Harris—not my cup of tea, but it spoke to him.
Shana James (18:22)
We all have different doorways to wisdom.
Hannah Chapman, CFP (18:25)
Exactly. He also read Thich Nhat Hanh. He started meditating, listening inward, and went to therapy on his own. I had done therapy a few years earlier. He was putting in effort.
Shana James (18:40)
Amazing.
Hannah Chapman, CFP (18:51)
A couple years later, we hit another crunchy point. I was really stepping into being more of myself—through Human Design and Gene Keys, which are astrology-based systems.
My husband, who loves Sam Harris, is extremely skeptical. And he was kind of snarky about it—mean at times. That made me retreat.
Shana James (19:45)
Yeah.
Hannah Chapman, CFP (19:55)
That’s when I noticed how I withhold. If I don’t feel safe being seen, I pull back. That became really clear.
Shana James (20:00)
Yes. Withholding makes sense. It’s terrifying to share parts of yourself and not have them met with curiosity or respect.
And the instinct becomes, Okay, I’ll take this part of me somewhere else – I’m going to take my ball and go play elsewhere.
Hannah Chapman, CFP (20:33)
Right. Yeah. I’ll go be myself over on this basketball court, but you don’t get the full version of me.
And when that started to feel untenable again, I let him know.
Shana James (20:36)
Totally. Yes.
Hannah Chapman, CFP (20:46)
I found that going through a psychedelic healing experience—an intentional, curated, facilitated experience—together was the thing.
Shana James (20:58)
Together. Beautiful.
Hannah Chapman, CFP (21:01)
We were both brand new to all of it. And the intentional growth work we’d done beforehand was really important. It made the experience something we could actually mine afterward.
Shana James (21:05)
Yes, I agree. The more consciousness and capacity you bring into something like that—to witness yourself and each other, to come from curiosity and love—the more you get out of it and the less overwhelming it becomes.
Hannah Chapman, CFP (21:38)
Yes. It can be too much if you don’t have the capacity to hold what you’re feeling and receiving.
Shana James (21:40)
Exactly. Through the body, through the nervous system—and then to do that with someone you’re trying to love and open to. It’s a big experience.
Hannah Chapman, CFP (21:56)
Mm-hmm.
Yes. That experience was such a turning point. The protocol we did was a heart opener. It literally lowers the defenses of the amygdala—that’s what’s happening chemically in the brain.
When we speak to each other, as humans, we can go into fight, flight, freeze, or fawn.
Shana James (22:29)
Yes. Exactly. Especially in relationships—we posture, or we collapse, or we disappear in some way.
Hannah Chapman, CFP (22:39)
Right. That’s the amygdala doing its job—trying to protect you. Even that feeling of I need to be ready in case I have to defend myself builds walls.
And even if those walls come down, it’s so easy to say, I’ve got my bricks right here.
Shana James (22:50)
Yes. I’m just going to stack them back up.
Hannah Chapman, CFP (23:04)
I was so good at that.
The heart protocol quiets the amygdala and floods the brain with serotonin so you can have deep conversations without fear—and actually receive what’s being said.
Shana James (23:06)
Yes.
That’s such an important point. The walls come up to protect the places that are afraid. When I work with clients, we often ask, What are you afraid to say right now? and How do we make it safe to say it?
So I’m curious—after the psychedelic experience, how did you integrate that way of talking into everyday life?
Hannah Chapman, CFP (24:11)
Yes. That’s the whole thing. The experience itself is a peak moment—we’ll never forget it—but it’s only one day, a few hours. The real work is integration.
One big piece was that the group we worked with provided integration coaches. We asked if we could do our sessions together instead of separately. Having someone who could hold both of our experiences was huge.
Shana James (24:40)
Great. That’s awesome.
Hannah Chapman, CFP (24:57)
She helped us learn how to talk to each other differently.
Another piece was that we started having Sunday check-ins—relationship board meetings, you could call them.
Shana James (25:07)
Yes. Check-ins or meetings are such a powerful practice.
Hannah Chapman, CFP (25:12)
We had a checklist of topics. We meditate before we start. We light candles, use palo santo, play nice music—it’s cozy.
Now it’s something we actually look forward to.
Shana James (25:32)
You’re soothing the nervous system.
Hannah Chapman, CFP (25:38)
Exactly. We have tools now. We have a real tool bag.
Shana James (25:39)
Yes. I just want to name how important that is.
In my relationship, those check-ins are foundational too. We miss them sometimes, and then we come back. For people who identify as people pleasers—where it’s hard to say things in the moment—knowing there’s a dedicated time makes all the difference.
Nothing gets swept under the rug for years. It becomes a game changer.
Hannah Chapman, CFP (26:22)
Yes. And we come from curiosity—both of us owning our own experience. This is what I’m feeling.
Shana James (26:34)
Not you did this to me, but this is what I’m noticing.
Hannah Chapman, CFP (26:39)
Exactly. This thing happened, and here’s what it triggered in me.
It becomes you and me against the problem.
Shana James (26:56)
We’re on the same team, looking at the thing—rather than coming at each other.
Hannah Chapman, CFP (27:01)
Yes.
And another big realization was around the “stonewalling.” I wanted that to be him stonewalling me.
Shana James (27:16)
Yes. And then you got to see—
Hannah Chapman, CFP (27:19)
—that I was withholding too. When I don’t feel safe being seen, I pull back. That’s my version of not sharing.
Shana James (27:33)
Your version.
Which on his side could feel like stonewalling or being pushed away.
Hannah Chapman, CFP (27:44)
Exactly. And hurtful. Like, Why are you so different with other people? Why are you so happy with them?
So now I know—if I’m holding something back, there’s a trigger there.
Shana James (27:50)
Right. There’s fear. There’s not feeling safe.
And the humility it takes to say, This is mine instead of blaming—that’s huge.
Hannah Chapman, CFP (28:10)
Mm-hmm.
It’s such a learning process. I see it so clearly now with my 10-year-old—how easy it is to blame.
Shana James (28:29)
Everyone else, yes.
Hannah Chapman, CFP (28:41)
She’ll come in and say, Why didn’t you do this thing? And I’m like, I had zero involvement in that.
Shana James (28:49)
Parenting really shows us the mind at work. They hear the worst interpretation of what we say.
Parenting becomes another spiritual practice—just like romantic relationships.
Hannah Chapman, CFP (29:10)
Oh my gosh.
Once communication with Adam became safe instead of scary, everything else became clearer.
Shana James (29:19)
Yes.
Hannah Chapman, CFP (29:30)
Now I know what safe communication feels like. With our kids, coworkers, family—it’s about creating that safety.
My husband has said, I’ve never experienced this level of safety in communication before.
And now we know we can get through anything—because we can talk about it with love and curiosity. And that changes everything.
Shana James (30:06)
As people are listening and thinking, I’ve been there or I am there—
“It doesn’t feel safe to communicate. I don’t feel seen. I don’t feel understood. I try to express myself and I’m not heard.”
Are there any things you’re practicing that are helping you?
Hannah Chapman, CFP (30:22)
Yes. The first thing that comes to mind for me is human design and Gene Keys—looking at those aspects. That was the thing I really wanted to share and talk about more, because I learned so much about myself and how I operate.
Shana James (30:42)
That kind of self-reflection—knowing your patterns, your triggers—
Hannah Chapman, CFP (30:45)
Exactly.
Even though my husband is skeptical about it—and that’s fine. He can be skeptical. And I can also see how his design is very accurate in different ways for him. We have some very fundamental differences.
I find that when both partners are at least open to learning about it, there are moments where it’s like, oh, we can really see each other more clearly.
Shana James (31:04)
Mm-hmm.
Hannah Chapman, CFP (31:16)
Whether you’re more head-based, heart-based, gut-based—all of those things—without blaming someone for being wrong because they’re not like you.
Shana James (31:21)
Really.
Hannah Chapman, CFP (31:21)
Mm-hmm. Exactly.
We didn’t go deeply into that here, but it was such a big piece for me—understanding our differences. I’m not wrong, and he’s not wrong. This is how I operate; that’s how he operates. And rather than—
Shana James (31:48)
Yeah. And how beautiful to know.
There’s that Rumi quote—I always butcher it—but the essence is, beyond right and wrong, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
Can we be in relationship without making either person wrong—and instead be curious about each other?
Hannah Chapman, CFP (32:06)
Yes. Exactly.
It was so powerful for me to learn about our differences and uniqueness and to see them as gifts—rather than something being wrong with me.
Shana James (32:24)
Or a problem.
And to clarify, we’re not talking about abusive relationships. We’re talking about relationships with mutual respect, care, and basic emotional safety.
Hannah Chapman, CFP (32:32)
Absolutely. Mutual respect.
And the second piece is creating safety within yourself. If you don’t feel safe in your own body to even see your own truth, there’s almost no chance your partner can see it either.
That was another practice for me—creating my own inner safety.
I hold me. I love me. I believe in me.
So much so that it doesn’t actually matter if you believe in me—though it feels good when you do.
Shana James (33:12)
Yes. Exactly.
It feels good, and I want that—and it’s not a “fuck you” if you don’t.
I can be sovereign. It can hurt if you don’t see me the way I want to be seen, and we can work on that together—but I don’t have to deny or betray myself to fit into someone else’s view of me.
That changes everything.
Hannah Chapman, CFP (33:48)
Yes, it really does.
And if someone is unwilling to see you—and never will be—then at least you know. If you see and love yourself, and the other person is willing to come to the table, you can work with that. If not, that’s your answer too.
Shana James (34:01)
Yeah. It’s not going to work.
Hannah Chapman, CFP (34:11)
And you get to choose how you love you.
What’s been so special in my relationship is that ongoing willingness—how can I see you better?
Our toolbox just keeps getting more stocked.
Shana James (34:38)
I love that.
I often invite clients to ask their partner, How can I love you better? or What would help you feel more cared for?
These are things so few of us were taught or modeled growing up.
Thank you so much—for your vulnerability, for the courage it takes to go through these phases, for the moments you said, I can’t do this anymore, and the moments you said, I’m willing to practice and keep going.
It’s such a beautiful example of growing together over decades.
Hannah Chapman, CFP (35:39)
Yes. And I used to think growth meant you had to do it my way.
For a while it felt like we were growing on totally different sides of the mountain—I couldn’t see him, didn’t understand where he was.
And then it became, we don’t have to grow the same way—we just both have to be growing.
Shana James (35:58)
Yeah. Exactly.
Hannah Chapman, CFP (36:08)
And now I love listening to what interests him. It’s so beautiful and so different.
I’ll be like, You know, Loch Kelly sounds a lot like Michael A. Singer, and he’s like, Yeah, whatever.
We’re saying the same thing—but in different languages.
Shana James (36:25)
I love it.
So how can people find you if they want financial support or help understanding their human design or Gene Keys?
Hannah Chapman, CFP (36:40)
Thank you.
In financial planning, it’s so important to have someone who deeply cares about relationships and seeing people fully. That’s how we support not just wealth, but life and longevity.
You can find me at xsquaredwealth.com—that’s X squared, the numeral two, wealth dot com. The link will be in the show notes.
Shana James (37:20)
Yes, the link will be there.
Hannah Chapman, CFP (37:24)
I also integrate human design into financial planning if people want. And I work with it separately through expansiveCEO. com.
If someone wants to dive into their design, Gene Keys, or prosperity sequence—to show up more authentically in business, parenting, relationships—there are lots of entry points. I like to meet people where they are.
Shana James (37:59)
Awesome. Thank you so much—for being here and for helping people feel less alone, and for showing that growth and healing are possible.
Hannah Chapman, CFP (38:24)
Thank you, Shana.
Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):
https://uppbeat.io/t/prigida/burble
License code: JYEBEACXSYUOYD5E
Podcast (practicing-love): Play in new window | Download | Embed
Subscribe: RSS