The Daring Well Podcast - Holistic Health & Wellness, Mindset, and Personal Growth · Rita Mercer, Wellness, Mindset & Mental Health Expert

Soul Surgery. It's time to heal you. Turning Pain Into Purpose with Nikki Allen

·33 min·2 clips

Nikki Allen says she had to do “soul surgery” to understand why she stayed in abuse.

1. The Daring Well Podcast episode centers on Nikki Allen’s "Loved You, Hated You" and her “soul surgery” approach to healing after abuse. 2. Rita Mercer hosts Nikki Allen, who is described as an award-winning author, R&B singer, recording artist, filmmaker, and “spiritual disruptor,” and Nikki says she also sees herself as a visionary. 3. The episode asks what it takes to turn betrayal, identity loss, and self-doubt into a story about choosing yourself. 4. Nikki says the book, screenplay, and song all began with an abusive relationship she lived through “many, many moons ago.” 5. She says she does not write while in pain and has to “get over it” before she can look back and turn it into art. 6. Nikki links the project to the lyrics “I loved you. I hated you. And now I’m releasing you,” which became part of the song and then the screenplay. 7. She says the story was shaped by public reactions to Diddy and Cassie and by the question of why someone stays or goes back. 8. Nikki says it can take “seven to 12 times” before a person can leave an abusive relationship, and she wanted the story to explain that pattern. 9. She describes the character Gabby as having a choice between staying with what is familiar and leaving for something healthier. 10. Nikki says the deeper love story is not romantic but a person learning to choose themselves. 11. She says she had to sit down and do “soul surgery” because she is strong on the outside but needed to understand what was “askew” inside. 12. Nikki says the phrase “charm harm” came from a professor who read the book and identified the cycle of kindness, abuse, apology, and more charm. 13. She says she stayed with one man for seven years, and the relationship was so volatile that both of them ended up in the hospital. 14. Nikki explains that her mother’s death and her move to Los Angeles left her isolated, without friends or the support she once had. 15. A close friend eventually told her she did not want to hear the complaints anymore because Nikki was not leaving, which forced her to confront her pattern. 16. Nikki says a later six-year relationship was not abusive, but she ended it because the other person did not grow with her and she loved herself more. 17. The conversation shifts into a boundary-setting style, with Nikki saying nobody gets to tell her how to operate and that she is happy living on a different frequency. 18. Nikki says healing starts with the root, especially what happened between ages zero and five, and she calls therapy, books, yoga, meditation, and affirmations “band-aids” if the root stays untouched. 19. The tone is direct, conversational, and testimonial, with Rita Mercer asking coaching-style questions and Nikki answering with personal examples and blunt advice. 20. Listeners interested in abuse recovery, boundaries, and self-worth will connect with it, while people wanting light wellness talk may skip it.

As heard by us

A clear look at healing, boundaries, and the slow work of reshaping self worth.

Nikki Allen treats healing as hard root work, not a quick fix. The discussion keeps circling back to the same point: childhood conditioning can shape self worth, and when that wiring goes unaddressed, it can show up in relationships, at work, and in the way someone draws…

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Why you'd press play

Press play if you want healing language rooted in self-worth, boundaries, and doing the root work.

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