July 27, 2025 • 22 mins
With over 30 years of experience as a hairstylist and salon owner, listening to the life drama of her customers, Dianne Harris was well-positioned to become a successful Life and Relationship Coach, a role she has excelled at for the past five years. In her personal life drama, Dianne is a twice-divorced single mother of three sons, and a survivor of the insidious effects of emotional abuse. After spending years in a toxic marriage with someone she once believed was her forever, she made the brave decision to choose herself, walk away, and rebuild her life from the ground up. Her journey led to deep healing, radical self-love, and the creation of a coaching practice that now helps other women do the same.
Dianne's passion is helping women—especially purpose-driven professionals in midlife—reclaim their identity, rebuild their self-worth, and attract emotionally healthy love, starting with the most crucial relationship, the one women have with themselves.
"I specialize in emotional abuse recovery, self-trust, boundary setting, dating after divorce, and rising from heartbreak with clarity and confidence. I'm also writing my memoir, Love Bomb, which shares her personal story of surviving emotional manipulation—and turning her pain into purpose."
Dianne's passion is helping women—especially purpose-driven professionals in midlife—reclaim their identity, rebuild their self-worth, and attract emotionally healthy love, starting with the most crucial relationship, the one women have with themselves.
"I specialize in emotional abuse recovery, self-trust, boundary setting, dating after divorce, and rising from heartbreak with clarity and confidence. I'm also writing my memoir, Love Bomb, which shares her personal story of surviving emotional manipulation—and turning her pain into purpose."
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Virgin.
(00:02):
Beauty.
Bitch.
Podcast.
Inspiring women to overcome social stereotypes and share unique life experiences without fear
of being defiantly different.
Your hosts.
Christopher and Heather.
Let's talk, shall we?
Nobody gets out of life alive.
(00:23):
And no one gets to live a life without pain.
But pain does not need to be our death sentence.
In fact, our pain can be the spark of our life purpose.
And if you don't believe me, well, we open that conversation with certified life coach,
author, and entrepreneur, Dianne Harris.
(00:44):
Welcome, Dianne, to Virgin Beauty Bitch.
Thank you so much for having me.
I'm so very excited to have this conversation with you today.
Thank you for being here.
I really enjoy having people speak about things that they've lived through and gone through
that can help others.
Now, Dianne, I believe no healthy person seeks out pain.
(01:06):
But pain, it seems, is inevitable for a life well-lived.
How did you come to see your pain as more than suffering and appreciate it as alchemy for your life purpose?
That's a great question.
I had gone through a very difficult period in my life, with a emotionally abusive relationship marriage.
(01:30):
And once I was out of that, I really had to do a deep dive into my own soul to figure out how that happened.
Why did I allow it and continue to allow it over the course of 10 years?
I wanted to figure out the purpose of that pain, if you will.
(01:52):
And you're so much smarter and wiser on the other side of it.
I think a lot of people go through self-blame.
How stupid could I be?
All these kinds of questions for themselves.
Overcoming that, like a lot of people never overcome just that hurdle.
(02:14):
How did you manage to get past that for yourself?
With a lot of therapy and coaching and self-reflection was probably the biggest thing.
In all of my years of dating, I've had two marriages, many relationships.
I came to the conclusion that, of course, I was the common denominator.
And why were they all failing?
(02:36):
What was my part in it?
And once I really dove down that road of acceptance and self-reflection of what my role was in each relationship.
And going back a little bit into my inner child and my upbringing, it started to make sense of where all these decisions came from.
(03:03):
And so, I think that that resonates with a lot of people and their relationships where we've heard for so long that there are many people in verbally or emotionally abusive relationships.
And it's harder for them to identify exactly what they're feeling, especially if they've been gasslet or made to feel like it was their fault.
(03:26):
You know that when physical abuse is there, it's very clear what damage is being done, but the damage that's being done with the erosion of self and the erosion of self-purpose that comes with emotional abuse.
What kind of was a turning point for you that you started to identify that this was indeed what was happening?
(03:48):
And then if you could help share any concrete steps that you took from there, I mean certainly even things that you found particularly illuminating in the therapy that you were doing, those details I find very helpful for our listeners.
There was not just one moment, first of all.
Because years and years of, you know, what gaslighting turns into self-gaslighting, so you're like questioning your own memory and your own thoughts and it's a really vicious cycle.
(04:19):
And with any type of abusive relationships, there's a cycle of abuse.
So there's the incident, the tension, the incident, and then the honeymoon after. And so it just keeps repeating it.
That's what you're in this tornado of confusion. So there's this hope that you stay in the good part.
(04:40):
So I think it was a series of, probably hundreds of events and times where I just said I couldn't do it anymore.
And once I really learned about what emotional abuse was, that's when I was like, oh my god, this is happening to me because I did not have a word for it.
In fact, I was trying to fix the wrong problem versus the right problem.
(05:04):
So, and to answer your question about my therapist, to be honest, I hired my first life coach while I was in life coaching certification program during COVID lockdown.
So five years ago, and this man had a podcast on love and abuse. And so I listened to that and I learned a lot.
(05:25):
And I'm like, this is what's happening to me in my relationship. And you know, the very subtle covert manipulation tactics that just erode your self-worth, your self-esteem, and your confidence.
And so it's definitely not one big thing. It's an insidious series of events.
(05:46):
And you say that there was, like when you talk about emotional abuse as not what you were trying to fix, but you were trying to fix something else, which weren't sharing what that was?
Yes, absolutely. So when the emotional abuse started, a lot of times it was when my partner had been drinking. And so I was like, well, maybe he's just an angry drunk, right?
So it's like, make sure he doesn't drink too much. And then when it started happening when he wasn't drinking and he was sober, I then diagnosed him with an anger management issue, right?
(06:18):
Because he was angry and he would blow up and he'd be going, go on like full blown rages. So let's, okay, now it's an anger management issue.
So let's see if we can fix that problem. And so admittedly, I was the helper fixer, saver, changer through the relationship.
So in with, with my heart, but I did, I do see now where I went wrong because if I just believed the way that the person was showing up the first time and that's what how they were, that's who they were, then I wouldn't have stayed for so long.
(06:54):
I think, I think women can fall into giving chance after chance after chance. And that's not the right way to go.
So interesting to me that you, you've been now a life coach for like five years or so.
Yes.
But you were actually a life coach for 30 years because you were, you were, you were salon owner and hair style.
(07:20):
So you had to sit behind the chair. And I'm sure you heard these stories at Nazim over and over and over and over again.
Did you ever apply them to your own or were they just separate from your life?
I think there was separate from my life. I kept that separate and I did hear a lot of different stories. Never of any of my clients I believe getting abused.
(07:45):
So there was divorces. There was a lot of cheating. There was illnesses. There was death, you know, but I think that women don't know how to talk about it.
That's, that's critical. That's a critical part because it sounds to me like they will talk about the, what the aftermath, what happened, but not what was happening.
(08:07):
Absolutely.
Yeah.
How do we get women to talk about these things? What, what, what, what's it, what can we do to encourage that story to come to the surface?
I think by talking about it and by like, you know, in some of my social media posts, I'm very vulnerable. I'm very honest.
(08:29):
Even being out of the relationship just so other people can see that there is another side to it. You can get out and just be by awareness by talking about it.
I am writing a book about it. So I hope that will serve many people.
Give us a title. It's great. Give us a title.
You want the title?
Yes.
The title is awesome.
We were talking about the title of your podcast and so yes, there's definitely meaning behind it.
(08:56):
And the title is called Love Bomb and I have a fantastic subtitle, but I'm going to keep that a secret.
Oh, okay.
Because the subtitle, yes.
Okay.
Books not quite done yet. So it's called Love Bomb.
Do you know what Love Bombing is?
We do, but tell our listeners.
Okay.
So Love Bombing is a manipulation tactic. It's usually used in the beginning of a relationship to gain control over the other person through excessive compliments, excessive gifts, flattery.
(09:28):
And it's to get them to trust them so they have control.
You know what? Love Bombing sounds like to me. It sounds like shivery being reponised basically.
That's what it is really.
Yeah.
Over the top kind of adoration and seeing how they can quickly hook you emotionally.
(09:51):
Absolutely.
Get your trust and then you know, it's a cycle, right?
So the Love Bombing is in the cycle of abuse. So it continues.
It continues throughout the relationship.
How can someone be aware of when they are being carpet bombed by love?
That's what I teach my clients.
(10:14):
It's if it feels to be true and I hate to say this, especially in the beginning of a relationship, it could be.
It could be good to go to be true. So pay attention to that.
It could be a red flag.
It could at least be an orange flag.
Because I don't think we should be receiving gifts really early in on a relationship.
Like a diamond necklace three months in is not, I don't think.
(10:39):
The right gift to receive in a new relationship.
I guess it depends. I mean, there could be, there could be a guy that is not love bombing you doing that.
But I think there's a time and a place for those types of gifts.
And then the excessive adoration and flattery and attention.
I think you really have to listen to your intuition and how it makes you feel.
(11:05):
I did feel uneasy about those things, but I talked myself out of it because I said I deserved it.
I deserve this. I'm in love.
Thanks for that distinction.
I think that really is kind of at the heart of why people who use it as a mechanism of control, you know, know that it works so well.
That in a society where women often give so much to, you know, relationships to friends, to family, to our work, balancing, unpaid work.
(11:35):
That when somebody kind of recognizes that you deserve to be spoiled or, you know, overly, like given a lot of attention, it can feel nice.
And it can feel like, wow, this person is really appreciating me in ways that people have overlooked me or undermined me in the past.
So I can see like the psychological hooks so to speak.
(12:01):
So I like what you've said just in that, you know, well, it can be something that is genuine to be mindful of the other actions.
Because, you know, in many experiences, like you've said, you know, you want the good to be all the time, right?
(12:22):
And you kind of, I feel like we kind of diminish how bad the bad really is because you're so wanting to go back to that honey motor to the love bomb that.
Well, this is who this person really is. It's the good stuff. And then this is just a section of who they are. And we can work on that section when really there's a whole person to look at.
(12:44):
There is an unfortunately with the, with the love bombing, the second part of it is when they, they use those things that they've given you or the compliments or the gifts of the trips as a weapon against you.
It's almost like love bombing 2.0. You get the gifts and the trips and the affection. But then, if during the heat of the moment, when there's abuse, it's verbal or emotional abuse, it's, you know, I did this for you, I did that for you.
(13:14):
So it's like, that's, that's tough. Is that really creates a creates some confusion?
Yeah, when there's always strings attached and you kind of owe me for everything that I've given you and you should be able to deal with this hard part of me because, and how I treat you because look at all the other things I've done for you.
And I think that that is like it's damaging for not only that relationship and what it's doing to you, but it's damaging for other relationships.
(13:42):
Because then when people offer you things or want to do nice things and gestures that don't have strings attached, it's very hard to believe them because you're so accustomed to generosity being tied to later abuse or finding something that they can hold over you.
Very true.
So tell us about the empowered woman method. Six steps to heal. We claim her power and receive healthy love.
(14:08):
Yes, so that's my healing program and that's where I have women come in and we do a lot of work on healing and releasing the past and getting back their confidence in their self worth and learning what boundaries and discernment are personally with yourself and also in a relationship.
(14:33):
And then towards the end of the coaching program, we can talk about if they're ready, you know, maybe to start dating, but they must have their self love really in check because that's the key.
The key to loving and knowing yourself is the self love.
I mean, you put it in such a great kind of nutshell, but there's so much to what you just said there.
(15:02):
You know, when it's self assuredness, that's home built, not from other people's validation, but really how you view yourself and your capacities and the way you grow, the way you make mistakes.
It's, you know, it's a game changer in every way.
It absolutely is, you know, women tend to abandon themselves in these types of relationships. So exactly what I did.
(15:31):
You're sort of encouraged through the lore of romance to do exactly that. Let someone else lead your life basically.
Yeah, and the whole time I was trying to get this person to love themselves because I knew that they didn't.
It was a very childhood trauma. And as I'm trying to force fix him, I lost myself in that because you can't, you can't have both.
(15:59):
You can't, you can't be doing both. So that's why I put myself on the back burner and abandoned myself and never again.
You shouldn't have to do that in a healthy relationship.
Yeah, I can a healthy relationship knowing that both people can have challenging past, but that they've each seen it as their own responsibility to do the work for themselves and on themselves so that when each other is going through a challenging point in life, you take turns in being able to show up for each other.
(16:34):
From a healthy space, yes.
Reciprocity, I feel as something that I very attuned to being much more mindful of than I was, you know, earlier on in life.
Because I feel that people who are traumatized, like so many of us are, but haven't done any work to kind of fill those holes in those gaps, they will suck you dry.
(16:58):
And it won't stop. Yes, yes, yes. I love that word Reciprocity. That is definitely one of my words that I use often.
It's a good one. It just feels good. Just the concept of it feels good. It's a good word.
So one of the questions we love to ask our guest, Diane, is what does feminine mean to you?
(17:24):
Well, I thought I was thinking about this and the word feminine has changed many times in my life.
But right now in my life, it means standing strong in my self-worth, while staying open to a safe, secure relationship in the future.
And that is for me, with me personally, and with a lot of clients that I coach.
(17:47):
It's also about owning my power as a strong woman and honoring my intuition. That's so important.
And allowing space for the right masculine energy to come into my life someday.
And knowing my values and knowing my boundaries and having that disarmament, that is so important when you're choosing who your partner is.
(18:11):
Can you give us a glimpse as to what it used to mean before this revolution?
Well, I feel like being feminine, maybe when I was a younger woman, meant being pretty, being treated like a lady, not talking back to people, not just about looks, but just being a woman.
(18:34):
But now I feel like I take it now and I'm thinking about what's going on inside versus the outside.
Because a woman can look feminine on the outside, but on the inside she just needs to feel it.
So is your definition of woman or woman hug shifted?
It has, because I've always been called a strong woman.
(18:55):
But I certainly didn't feel that way in the toxic relationship marriage I was in.
So now I feel like I as a woman, I have three children that are almost all grown and it's my time.
It's my time to take care of myself. I've been to two divorces in my life and it's about becoming the next level woman for me.
(19:20):
That has my own back and has full self trust.
That's phenomenal because Heather and I are working on a project together to bring that woman that you just identified to the forefront and leave some of the tradition that has made women so vulnerable behind.
(19:44):
So we love that definition that you just gave because that is where we are headed and want to bring others along with us.
So thank you for resonating with us on that.
Thank you. I guess we're on the same page.
On the same page. For the same tribe. I love that.
(20:07):
Like I told you before, like some people see our name and they are turned off by the words. Those are not people that obviously resonate with the positive message that we want to bring to these words that have been so damaging for and over centuries.
(20:28):
Someone like you who before we even meet before we even speak a word to each other, we're obviously looking in the same direction and resonating on the same frequency.
That means a lot to us to have someone like you recognize us just in our name. Trust us and then submit yourself to being part of this journey that you are on and we are on together.
(20:55):
Thank you for that. Thank you Christopher. Sorry nice words.
Appreciate that.
Yes, even though they, you know, these words in our name, they do hold a lot of weight, especially with the historical underpinnings.
You know, the ways that women in particular have either reclaimed or shifted or reimagined these words is very powerful.
(21:17):
And in their own ways, these words have walked through the fire of some of what you've spoken about, like that moving from surface level of what womanhood or what these words mean to a completely different understanding of the power that it can hold for you, not based on anybody else's needs of you, but what you want to see from yourself.
(21:43):
Absolutely. So thank you for taking your time, your patience, and your understanding and sharing with us, something that we deeply, from the bottom of our hearts believe in and march strongly towards that sharing that with others.
(22:04):
Thank you so much for having this show. I mean, it's amazing.
And I love your mission, your collected mission together. Thank you so much.
And this Kumbaya moment was brought to you by the Virgin, the Beauty and the Bitch.
Find us like us. Share us. Please come on back.
To become a partner in the BBB community, we invite you to find us at virginbeautybitch.com, like us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, and share us with people who are defiantly different, like you.
(22:43):
Until next time, thanks for listening.
(upbeat music)
[Music]
Virgin.
(00:02):
Beauty.
Bitch.
Podcast.
Inspiring women to overcome social stereotypes and share unique life experiences without fear
of being defiantly different.
Your hosts.
Christopher and Heather.
Let's talk, shall we?
Nobody gets out of life alive.
(00:23):
And no one gets to live a life without pain.
But pain does not need to be our death sentence.
In fact, our pain can be the spark of our life purpose.
And if you don't believe me, well, we open that conversation with certified life coach,
author, and entrepreneur, Dianne Harris.
(00:44):
Welcome, Dianne, to Virgin Beauty Bitch.
Thank you so much for having me.
I'm so very excited to have this conversation with you today.
Thank you for being here.
I really enjoy having people speak about things that they've lived through and gone through
that can help others.
Now, Dianne, I believe no healthy person seeks out pain.
(01:06):
But pain, it seems, is inevitable for a life well-lived.
How did you come to see your pain as more than suffering and appreciate it as alchemy for your life purpose?
That's a great question.
I had gone through a very difficult period in my life, with a emotionally abusive relationship marriage.
(01:30):
And once I was out of that, I really had to do a deep dive into my own soul to figure out how that happened.
Why did I allow it and continue to allow it over the course of 10 years?
I wanted to figure out the purpose of that pain, if you will.
(01:52):
And you're so much smarter and wiser on the other side of it.
I think a lot of people go through self-blame.
How stupid could I be?
All these kinds of questions for themselves.
Overcoming that, like a lot of people never overcome just that hurdle.
(02:14):
How did you manage to get past that for yourself?
With a lot of therapy and coaching and self-reflection was probably the biggest thing.
In all of my years of dating, I've had two marriages, many relationships.
I came to the conclusion that, of course, I was the common denominator.
And why were they all failing?
(02:36):
What was my part in it?
And once I really dove down that road of acceptance and self-reflection of what my role was in each relationship.
And going back a little bit into my inner child and my upbringing, it started to make sense of where all these decisions came from.
(03:03):
And so, I think that that resonates with a lot of people and their relationships where we've heard for so long that there are many people in verbally or emotionally abusive relationships.
And it's harder for them to identify exactly what they're feeling, especially if they've been gasslet or made to feel like it was their fault.
(03:26):
You know that when physical abuse is there, it's very clear what damage is being done, but the damage that's being done with the erosion of self and the erosion of self-purpose that comes with emotional abuse.
What kind of was a turning point for you that you started to identify that this was indeed what was happening?
(03:48):
And then if you could help share any concrete steps that you took from there, I mean certainly even things that you found particularly illuminating in the therapy that you were doing, those details I find very helpful for our listeners.
There was not just one moment, first of all.
Because years and years of, you know, what gaslighting turns into self-gaslighting, so you're like questioning your own memory and your own thoughts and it's a really vicious cycle.
(04:19):
And with any type of abusive relationships, there's a cycle of abuse.
So there's the incident, the tension, the incident, and then the honeymoon after. And so it just keeps repeating it.
That's what you're in this tornado of confusion. So there's this hope that you stay in the good part.
(04:40):
So I think it was a series of, probably hundreds of events and times where I just said I couldn't do it anymore.
And once I really learned about what emotional abuse was, that's when I was like, oh my god, this is happening to me because I did not have a word for it.
In fact, I was trying to fix the wrong problem versus the right problem.
(05:04):
So, and to answer your question about my therapist, to be honest, I hired my first life coach while I was in life coaching certification program during COVID lockdown.
So five years ago, and this man had a podcast on love and abuse. And so I listened to that and I learned a lot.
(05:25):
And I'm like, this is what's happening to me in my relationship. And you know, the very subtle covert manipulation tactics that just erode your self-worth, your self-esteem, and your confidence.
And so it's definitely not one big thing. It's an insidious series of events.
(05:46):
And you say that there was, like when you talk about emotional abuse as not what you were trying to fix, but you were trying to fix something else, which weren't sharing what that was?
Yes, absolutely. So when the emotional abuse started, a lot of times it was when my partner had been drinking. And so I was like, well, maybe he's just an angry drunk, right?
So it's like, make sure he doesn't drink too much. And then when it started happening when he wasn't drinking and he was sober, I then diagnosed him with an anger management issue, right?
(06:18):
Because he was angry and he would blow up and he'd be going, go on like full blown rages. So let's, okay, now it's an anger management issue.
So let's see if we can fix that problem. And so admittedly, I was the helper fixer, saver, changer through the relationship.
So in with, with my heart, but I did, I do see now where I went wrong because if I just believed the way that the person was showing up the first time and that's what how they were, that's who they were, then I wouldn't have stayed for so long.
(06:54):
I think, I think women can fall into giving chance after chance after chance. And that's not the right way to go.
So interesting to me that you, you've been now a life coach for like five years or so.
Yes.
But you were actually a life coach for 30 years because you were, you were, you were salon owner and hair style.
(07:20):
So you had to sit behind the chair. And I'm sure you heard these stories at Nazim over and over and over and over again.
Did you ever apply them to your own or were they just separate from your life?
I think there was separate from my life. I kept that separate and I did hear a lot of different stories. Never of any of my clients I believe getting abused.
(07:45):
So there was divorces. There was a lot of cheating. There was illnesses. There was death, you know, but I think that women don't know how to talk about it.
That's, that's critical. That's a critical part because it sounds to me like they will talk about the, what the aftermath, what happened, but not what was happening.
(08:07):
Absolutely.
Yeah.
How do we get women to talk about these things? What, what, what, what's it, what can we do to encourage that story to come to the surface?
I think by talking about it and by like, you know, in some of my social media posts, I'm very vulnerable. I'm very honest.
(08:29):
Even being out of the relationship just so other people can see that there is another side to it. You can get out and just be by awareness by talking about it.
I am writing a book about it. So I hope that will serve many people.
Give us a title. It's great. Give us a title.
You want the title?
Yes.
The title is awesome.
We were talking about the title of your podcast and so yes, there's definitely meaning behind it.
(08:56):
And the title is called Love Bomb and I have a fantastic subtitle, but I'm going to keep that a secret.
Oh, okay.
Because the subtitle, yes.
Okay.
Books not quite done yet. So it's called Love Bomb.
Do you know what Love Bombing is?
We do, but tell our listeners.
Okay.
So Love Bombing is a manipulation tactic. It's usually used in the beginning of a relationship to gain control over the other person through excessive compliments, excessive gifts, flattery.
(09:28):
And it's to get them to trust them so they have control.
You know what? Love Bombing sounds like to me. It sounds like shivery being reponised basically.
That's what it is really.
Yeah.
Over the top kind of adoration and seeing how they can quickly hook you emotionally.
(09:51):
Absolutely.
Get your trust and then you know, it's a cycle, right?
So the Love Bombing is in the cycle of abuse. So it continues.
It continues throughout the relationship.
How can someone be aware of when they are being carpet bombed by love?
That's what I teach my clients.
(10:14):
It's if it feels to be true and I hate to say this, especially in the beginning of a relationship, it could be.
It could be good to go to be true. So pay attention to that.
It could be a red flag.
It could at least be an orange flag.
Because I don't think we should be receiving gifts really early in on a relationship.
Like a diamond necklace three months in is not, I don't think.
(10:39):
The right gift to receive in a new relationship.
I guess it depends. I mean, there could be, there could be a guy that is not love bombing you doing that.
But I think there's a time and a place for those types of gifts.
And then the excessive adoration and flattery and attention.
I think you really have to listen to your intuition and how it makes you feel.
(11:05):
I did feel uneasy about those things, but I talked myself out of it because I said I deserved it.
I deserve this. I'm in love.
Thanks for that distinction.
I think that really is kind of at the heart of why people who use it as a mechanism of control, you know, know that it works so well.
That in a society where women often give so much to, you know, relationships to friends, to family, to our work, balancing, unpaid work.
(11:35):
That when somebody kind of recognizes that you deserve to be spoiled or, you know, overly, like given a lot of attention, it can feel nice.
And it can feel like, wow, this person is really appreciating me in ways that people have overlooked me or undermined me in the past.
So I can see like the psychological hooks so to speak.
(12:01):
So I like what you've said just in that, you know, well, it can be something that is genuine to be mindful of the other actions.
Because, you know, in many experiences, like you've said, you know, you want the good to be all the time, right?
(12:22):
And you kind of, I feel like we kind of diminish how bad the bad really is because you're so wanting to go back to that honey motor to the love bomb that.
Well, this is who this person really is. It's the good stuff. And then this is just a section of who they are. And we can work on that section when really there's a whole person to look at.
(12:44):
There is an unfortunately with the, with the love bombing, the second part of it is when they, they use those things that they've given you or the compliments or the gifts of the trips as a weapon against you.
It's almost like love bombing 2.0. You get the gifts and the trips and the affection. But then, if during the heat of the moment, when there's abuse, it's verbal or emotional abuse, it's, you know, I did this for you, I did that for you.
(13:14):
So it's like, that's, that's tough. Is that really creates a creates some confusion?
Yeah, when there's always strings attached and you kind of owe me for everything that I've given you and you should be able to deal with this hard part of me because, and how I treat you because look at all the other things I've done for you.
And I think that that is like it's damaging for not only that relationship and what it's doing to you, but it's damaging for other relationships.
(13:42):
Because then when people offer you things or want to do nice things and gestures that don't have strings attached, it's very hard to believe them because you're so accustomed to generosity being tied to later abuse or finding something that they can hold over you.
Very true.
So tell us about the empowered woman method. Six steps to heal. We claim her power and receive healthy love.
(14:08):
Yes, so that's my healing program and that's where I have women come in and we do a lot of work on healing and releasing the past and getting back their confidence in their self worth and learning what boundaries and discernment are personally with yourself and also in a relationship.
(14:33):
And then towards the end of the coaching program, we can talk about if they're ready, you know, maybe to start dating, but they must have their self love really in check because that's the key.
The key to loving and knowing yourself is the self love.
I mean, you put it in such a great kind of nutshell, but there's so much to what you just said there.
(15:02):
You know, when it's self assuredness, that's home built, not from other people's validation, but really how you view yourself and your capacities and the way you grow, the way you make mistakes.
It's, you know, it's a game changer in every way.
It absolutely is, you know, women tend to abandon themselves in these types of relationships. So exactly what I did.
(15:31):
You're sort of encouraged through the lore of romance to do exactly that. Let someone else lead your life basically.
Yeah, and the whole time I was trying to get this person to love themselves because I knew that they didn't.
It was a very childhood trauma. And as I'm trying to force fix him, I lost myself in that because you can't, you can't have both.
(15:59):
You can't, you can't be doing both. So that's why I put myself on the back burner and abandoned myself and never again.
You shouldn't have to do that in a healthy relationship.
Yeah, I can a healthy relationship knowing that both people can have challenging past, but that they've each seen it as their own responsibility to do the work for themselves and on themselves so that when each other is going through a challenging point in life, you take turns in being able to show up for each other.
(16:34):
From a healthy space, yes.
Reciprocity, I feel as something that I very attuned to being much more mindful of than I was, you know, earlier on in life.
Because I feel that people who are traumatized, like so many of us are, but haven't done any work to kind of fill those holes in those gaps, they will suck you dry.
(16:58):
And it won't stop. Yes, yes, yes. I love that word Reciprocity. That is definitely one of my words that I use often.
It's a good one. It just feels good. Just the concept of it feels good. It's a good word.
So one of the questions we love to ask our guest, Diane, is what does feminine mean to you?
(17:24):
Well, I thought I was thinking about this and the word feminine has changed many times in my life.
But right now in my life, it means standing strong in my self-worth, while staying open to a safe, secure relationship in the future.
And that is for me, with me personally, and with a lot of clients that I coach.
(17:47):
It's also about owning my power as a strong woman and honoring my intuition. That's so important.
And allowing space for the right masculine energy to come into my life someday.
And knowing my values and knowing my boundaries and having that disarmament, that is so important when you're choosing who your partner is.
(18:11):
Can you give us a glimpse as to what it used to mean before this revolution?
Well, I feel like being feminine, maybe when I was a younger woman, meant being pretty, being treated like a lady, not talking back to people, not just about looks, but just being a woman.
(18:34):
But now I feel like I take it now and I'm thinking about what's going on inside versus the outside.
Because a woman can look feminine on the outside, but on the inside she just needs to feel it.
So is your definition of woman or woman hug shifted?
It has, because I've always been called a strong woman.
(18:55):
But I certainly didn't feel that way in the toxic relationship marriage I was in.
So now I feel like I as a woman, I have three children that are almost all grown and it's my time.
It's my time to take care of myself. I've been to two divorces in my life and it's about becoming the next level woman for me.
(19:20):
That has my own back and has full self trust.
That's phenomenal because Heather and I are working on a project together to bring that woman that you just identified to the forefront and leave some of the tradition that has made women so vulnerable behind.
(19:44):
So we love that definition that you just gave because that is where we are headed and want to bring others along with us.
So thank you for resonating with us on that.
Thank you. I guess we're on the same page.
On the same page. For the same tribe. I love that.
(20:07):
Like I told you before, like some people see our name and they are turned off by the words. Those are not people that obviously resonate with the positive message that we want to bring to these words that have been so damaging for and over centuries.
(20:28):
Someone like you who before we even meet before we even speak a word to each other, we're obviously looking in the same direction and resonating on the same frequency.
That means a lot to us to have someone like you recognize us just in our name. Trust us and then submit yourself to being part of this journey that you are on and we are on together.
(20:55):
Thank you for that. Thank you Christopher. Sorry nice words.
Appreciate that.
Yes, even though they, you know, these words in our name, they do hold a lot of weight, especially with the historical underpinnings.
You know, the ways that women in particular have either reclaimed or shifted or reimagined these words is very powerful.
(21:17):
And in their own ways, these words have walked through the fire of some of what you've spoken about, like that moving from surface level of what womanhood or what these words mean to a completely different understanding of the power that it can hold for you, not based on anybody else's needs of you, but what you want to see from yourself.
(21:43):
Absolutely. So thank you for taking your time, your patience, and your understanding and sharing with us, something that we deeply, from the bottom of our hearts believe in and march strongly towards that sharing that with others.
(22:04):
Thank you so much for having this show. I mean, it's amazing.
And I love your mission, your collected mission together. Thank you so much.
And this Kumbaya moment was brought to you by the Virgin, the Beauty and the Bitch.
Find us like us. Share us. Please come on back.
To become a partner in the BBB community, we invite you to find us at virginbeautybitch.com, like us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, and share us with people who are defiantly different, like you.
(22:43):
Until next time, thanks for listening.
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