In an interview with Chris Van Vliet as part of the INSIGHT With Chris Van Vliet podcast, Steph De Lander discussed several topics, including her release from the WWE, and how it helped to kickstart her run on the independent scene.

“I knew it got to a point where I wasn’t motivated, I wasn’t enjoying what I was doing, and I knew continuing to work through that and wrestle while I was in that mindset was actually going to be detrimental to my career, because I didn’t want to start putting out work that I wasn’t proud of, and I knew my mind wasn’t right, so I kind of took a tactical break of like six months, take a step back, recalibrate, figure out what it is that you want out of this, and also, I had to find my love for wrestling again.

Getting released was such a big shock to the system, and it did take quite a while to go through all of those emotions, and I didn’t feel like I could process that while I was wrestling. I had to really step back, miss it, learn to love it, and then that’s kind of what happened over that period of time, I had the time and the clarity to sit down and really figure out who I wanted to be, and I think that really helped kickstart this amazing run that I’ve had.”

The full interview is available at this link.