What do you do when the people who were supposed to protect you refuse to? Susan Burton found out, and then she chose to save herself.

In one of the most powerful episodes of Happy With Tammi Mac to date, host Tammi Mac sits down with Susan Burton — activist, author, and founder of A New Way of Life reentry organization — for an unflinching, deeply moving conversation about childhood trauma, generational pain, incarceration, sobriety, and what it truly means to rebuild your life from the ground up.

Susan Burton grew up in a household where harm was passed down like an inheritance no one asked for. Her mother, born in 1917 and just one generation removed from slavery, never found the tools to heal from her own trauma — and so the cycle continued. When Susan Burton finally confronted the people who had hurt her and the people who had failed to protect her, she was met with denial, dismissal, and silence. Her mother told her she should have "just crossed her legs." It was, Susan Burton says, the worst moment of her life.

It was also the best.

Because that crushing disappointment — the final proof that no one was coming to save her — became the fuel that pushed Susan Burton into sobriety, into purpose, and into building one of the most impactful reentry organizations in the country. A New Way of Life has helped hundreds of women transition out of the prison system with housing, resources, and real support. Susan Burton also works to help individuals get their criminal records expunged, clearing the path to a genuinely new beginning.

In this episode, Tammi Mac and Susan Burton talk about:

— The generational trauma that shaped Susan Burton's earliest years

— The brutal, clarifying confrontation that cracked her world open

— How drugs and alcohol became her way of surviving pain she had no other language for

— The moment she realized she had to be her own rescue

— A New Way of Life — and the women and men whose lives have been transformed

— The young woman wrongly convicted of murder at 15, exonerated at 20, now thriving — and the car she received just yesterday

— The unexpected peace Susan Burton found in a simple journaling practice

— What happiness, peace, and living in full color actually look like today

Susan Burton's memoir, :Becoming Miss Burton: From Prison to Recovery to Leading the Fight for Incarcerated Women", tells the story this episode only begins to touch.

Happy With Tammi Mac exists because Tammi Mac was suffering from depression and needed to find a map back to joy. She created this show to ask the people who had walked through their darkest moments and come back to the light: how did you do it? Susan Burton is one of those people. This conversation is for anyone who has ever felt like no one was coming — and needed proof that healing is possible anyway.

Happy With Tammi Mac is part of the Inflection Network.

📖 Becoming Miss Burton— available now

📓 The Five Minute Journal — fiveminutejournal.com and Amazon

🌐 A New Way of Life — anewwayoflife.org

If this episode stayed with you, please follow the show, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs to hear it. Happiness has been a hard word to come by — but it will exist again.