September 14, 2025 • 28 mins
Dr. Annmarie Waite is a nurse with a Ph.D, who’s also a wellness coach with a unique approach to supporting women on their health and self-care journey. Her distinctive care is rooted in a foundation of her own life experiences and recognizing common themes of neglect and shame that many women endure that impact their long-term health. Annmarie’s coaching style involves listening deeply and guiding women through the intricacies of their wellness stories, which are often unspoken and overlooked by insensitive medical protocols. For Annmarie, health is a personal mission. Her aim is to help clients break down barriers to discomfort, ultimately leading to transformation and healing.
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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?
What is health and what is wellness?
(00:24):
Should you be concerned with one over the other?
Well for clarity, we're happy to welcome a woman who established her career as a professor
with a PhD in nursing.
We welcome Dr. Anne-Marie Wait to Virgin Beauty Bitch.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for having me.
I'm very delighted to be here with you both.
(00:46):
We are double delighted.
Now, Anne-Marie, as soon as a visitor lands on your website, this is what they see and
I really love this introduction.
Hello.
I'm Dr. Anne-Marie Wait.
And I warmly welcome you to Girlfriend's Health.
I'm here to embark on a profound journey of well-being and self-discovery with you.
(01:10):
Anne-Marie, I have to admit, no traditional nurse has ever said anything close to that
to me.
What is Girlfriend's Health and how does the title nurse play into what you offer here?
Oh, I'm so glad you asked Chris because there is a story behind the name Girlfriend's Health.
(01:31):
And there's also a story behind the reason why I am the kind of nurse that I am.
And I think sometimes our stories, we don't cheer them, but it's important that we do
because without that story, we wouldn't be who we are.
(01:52):
And so that has been my mission.
I'm hoping that in my story, by sharing it, can help other women to find their voice, first
of all, and to also help them to celebrate their uniqueness because every one of us are
unique.
So I became a nurse and it has always been my passion to be healthy.
(02:20):
And I gained that passion because my father died when he was 43 years old.
And from that, I was 12 at the time when he died.
And from that experience, I just dove into learning what it takes so that I would not follow
(02:42):
in his footsteps.
And that, I think, it almost gave me a mission.
And my mission was to seek out how to just maintain wellness because you know, you say health
and wellness.
So health is the goal.
But wellness is the process that you have to take.
(03:03):
It's the activities that you have to do in order to achieve that goal.
And so by the time I decided to go back to nursing school, I had already been married and had
two children and it was not a good relationship.
But because of my, I guess, my belief system that my life was just not what it was at the
(03:31):
time.
I decided to leave that marriage and had the courage to leave that marriage and also to pursue
a career as a nurse.
I am, everybody always asked me why, you know, if you're going to get a PhD and why didn't
you just go back, why didn't you just be a medical doctor?
(03:52):
But that wasn't my goal.
I just wanted to be well.
I just wanted to be healthy.
And so my journey as a nurse really started out in teaching me the things that I should
do in order to be healthy.
And it also, it really started because when I had my kids, I was very young and I wanted
(04:17):
to know how, I wanted to know how to take care of them, not only on a general level, but
about their development, about their mental health.
I wanted to do the holistic part of raising kids.
And so that's what nursing did for me.
So I was able to learn the physiology of the person, the human being, but also my goal was
(04:42):
to look deeper, not just, and I never, I have never adopted the theory that you need medication
to get better.
My thing was, your body can take care of itself.
You have a system that is capable of healing and you just got to let it work.
And so as I went through nursing, I decided that it was a journey.
(05:07):
It really was a journey for me because everything that I did, I didn't realize it at the time.
I was seeking happiness, that journey that I was on.
And so because I wasn't quite clear on what happiness, true happiness is, I gave it a
(05:29):
meaning.
I said, well, then it must mean that I need to climb to the top of my ladder professionally.
And that's what I pursued.
I just started climbing and climbing and going higher.
With that, I developed a lot of insight, growth.
And I realized, you know, when I got to the top, I still wasn't happy.
(05:51):
It didn't, it's okay.
I should be thrilled.
I should be so happy, but I wasn't because it was then that I realized that happiness,
it's not on the outside.
It's not something you seek.
It comes from inside.
And I then started to teach differently because by then I was a nursing professor and I
(06:15):
just changed the way my outlook and the way I did things.
And that was when I decided that sharing my story, that my story was not mine.
It really, and I don't have to, I didn't tell my story a lot because really I wasn't very,
I guess I was ashamed of it.
(06:35):
And when I had the awareness that in order for me to be happy and because my purpose was
to serve others, then I knew that my story had a meaning.
It had a meaning and in order for it to help others, if I want to serve others, I need to
share my story because there's so many women going through the same things that I've gone
(06:57):
through.
And if I don't open up and show them that I'm vulnerable and I've been there and this
is how I was able to climb out of it, then they wouldn't have that understanding that
there's somebody else out there just like me.
And so that's the reason why I decided to share my story on my website.
(07:22):
And that's also the reason why I chose to go into business as a different type of nurse.
You know, even I struggled a lot with Western medicine, the way we treat things.
And this was my way of just embracing the holistic model that we are perfect as we are and we
(07:47):
just got to accept ourselves and we have to learn how to depend.
We have a community for support, but everything that we have is already in us and we just need
to know how to stand in it and allow it to help us to grow.
So, I'm so happy to be here with you.
(08:08):
And what's speaking out to me and what you shared there is that there are so many foundational
pieces to your story that helped to shape how you want to work with your clients and work
with women.
So when I hear the girlfriend approach, can you just kind of walk me through what that
means to you?
Because you seeing a woman's journey with her own health and wellness, you know, as understanding
(08:34):
her own story and maybe the ways that she's either neglected her own health or been ashamed
of certain parts of it and not talked about it.
What does the girlfriend aspect of it mean to you?
And how does that show up with your clients?
Okay, so girlfriend came about because my daughter when she was growing up, she went through
(08:55):
a period of searching for herself and I was very connected to both my kids.
I was a school nurse because I wanted to be in their lives.
And one of the times when I was at her school as a teenager, she didn't want her friends
(09:15):
to know that her mother was watching over her.
And so she said to me, "Can we not tell anybody that you are my mother?"
And you know, rather than being hurt and you know, like how I said, "Well, what would you
like us to be?"
And she said, "Well, we, how about we are just girlfriends?"
(09:38):
And we became girlfriends and she would introduce me as her girlfriend.
But I said, "We can be girlfriends as long as you remember that girlfriends share.
They share things about their lives.
If they're having a rough time, if they're having a great time, that's what girlfriends
mean.
So if you, we are going to be girlfriends, that's the understanding that we have.
(10:00):
And we accepted it.
And to this day, she still calls me girlfriend.
And so when I decided to start my own business, that name was very important.
And I am a women's health nurse practitioner.
So my clients are mostly women.
And so it was just natural that that's what I would call my business girlfriend's health
(10:24):
because my, the focus is on girlfriends.
And the other reason why it's called girlfriend is because I understand that the relationship
between a mother and a daughter is so significantly important as to how that daughter is going
to grow up.
(10:45):
And it also affects her health.
We have done a lot of research showing where when the bonds between a mother and daughter
is not strong or it's been broken, that these women tend to have health issues that are
preventable if, you know, if they had had a better relationship with their moms.
(11:05):
So that is the, that is the significance of how girlfriends came together because I want
to, that's one of the programs that I'm trying to put together to, you know, offer workshops
or moms and daughters.
We had it before COVID, but then COVID shut us down.
And so I'm still trying to bring it back.
(11:26):
But to your question, Heather, it's, it's just, it's a message to women to help to empower
them, to let them know that they have the power to step into their, their own story and
to acknowledge who they are and able, and they're able to heal themselves.
(11:47):
And it doesn't matter how old you are.
It doesn't matter, you know, what, what your past has been that I truly believe that you
have that power.
You just have to own it.
You just have to step into it.
And, and I also want to encourage women to share their stories because that's how we grow.
It's how we, we're going to help each other.
You know, a big, a big word that comes up over and over and over again in our, as we've been
(12:11):
doing this podcast for a few years, is vulnerability, that ability to open yourself up and allow others
to see where, where you hurt, right?
Because that is the beginning of the healing, is being able to open up and allow that, to
see the sun and to absorb that energy.
(12:33):
It's interesting to me that you were so warm and welcoming with your daughter because in,
in the only website you say, I battled such insecurity that I couldn't even name three things
I liked about myself.
There was a time when self-doubt clouded my aspirations.
And for you to come from that, to now being told by your daughter, I don't want you to be
(12:58):
my mother, quote unquote, I want you to be my, that is a profound,
profound shift in your own self-identity.
Yes.
I think it speaks to the growth that had taken place because I was now at a point where
(13:19):
I felt responsible for her.
And I knew, I recognized what was happening with her.
She was going through a change in life and she needed to be able to find herself.
So I knew, I knew that us calling each other girlfriend didn't mean that I was in her mom,
but it was given her the strength.
(13:41):
And I didn't want to push her away.
If I had said, no, absolutely not, I'm not going to, you know, this is ridiculous.
That would have put up a wall between us.
And so, I mean, I hope that what people can get out of it is to show that there are other
ways that we can help someone.
We don't have to shut them down.
(14:02):
We can meet them where they are at.
And that way, then we can have a working relationship.
That just takes such profound self-awareness.
It really does.
Because I don't know how many mothers would have responded the way you did with your daughter.
Right?
What was your relationship with your mother as a mother?
(14:24):
It wasn't very good.
It wasn't a good one.
And so that's why I was healing myself from that relationship.
And part of what I was trying to establish between my daughter and I was breaking that chain
that it just goes around and around.
(14:46):
And if I had said that to my mother, she would have disowned me.
She would have said, if you don't want to call me mother, then let's just end it.
And so I was coming from there.
I knew that.
And so I was always working against, not repeating the same story so that it would continue.
(15:08):
And so I had to be an example to my daughter.
And so in the end, it worked out.
And I'm happy for that.
Throughout our show over the years, it's really become very apparent that some women
struggle with their own health and wellness because of the body shame that we feel or just
(15:34):
not being given enough tools or language when we were younger to say that what my body
is going through matters, so much shame and guilt around even periods and menstruation.
And after that, menopause.
And I'm just wondering from your perspective, what you found helpful to work women through
(15:54):
some of the insecurities that they carry to not let that inhibit them being an advocate
for their own health.
Have you found in your conversations with clients kind of ways for them to push through
some of the shame or guilt and really kind of prioritize themselves?
(16:15):
Yes.
I, it's a very good question.
I have found that behind all those blame and shame that we carry for our own ourselves,
there is a belief attached to it.
There is something that we were told.
(16:38):
My insecurity came from me being told when I was young that I'm not enough.
I'm not good enough.
And so I grew up thinking that it wasn't okay for me to shine my light because I wasn't
good enough.
And I have found that a lot of women who have this belief that they do not like certain parts
(16:59):
of their body, they were told something.
And so we have to go back.
I usually have this sort of exercise.
I have them identify what it is because we have these voices in our heads and we listen
to them.
You know, we listen to them over and over and it's really, we can't figure out where it
(17:20):
came from but it's there.
And I have them go back.
It's a visualization process and they go back to the very first time they heard a phrase,
that phrase, whatever the phrase is that they're telling themselves.
And it usually nine out of ten times it is when they were very young.
(17:42):
And that's what they have stuck with.
It's stuck in their head and they believe that.
And the good news is that you can change those beliefs.
You don't have to continue repeating that same belief that you have.
You can, it's a habit.
It's a habit that you've developed to repeat those negative thoughts and you also have to
(18:06):
go back and then rewrite those that belief.
So you, they, I have them identify the thought that there's have same to themselves and then
we rewrite it.
We rewrite it into something positive.
And then they work on that.
They work on that every day because when you remember you, if you're a 30 year old woman
(18:29):
with this negative belief, you've been saying it for 30 years.
So you can't expect that it's going to go away within a week.
It's something that you have to embrace and you have to start believing it.
And I, and it's not only rephrasing it in a positive way.
You have to feel it.
You have to, when you say something, then imagine yourself being that something and feeling
(18:55):
it.
How does it feel in your body?
And so that's the exercise that I do with them.
And it really, I, it works so well because, you know, they have done studies where people,
they have people pretend that they're playing the piano and they have people who are actually
playing the piano.
(19:15):
They visualize themselves playing the piano and they found that the people who pretended
that they just saw them self-playing it got the same experience as the people who are
actually playing it.
And that's how powerful visualization is.
And so it works.
It works.
It works for people who are trying to lose weight and they can't, there's a belief system
(19:39):
in their head that they're not letting go.
And once they can identify it and change it around, then it, it seems to break that, that
the second has a hold on you.
And once you can do that, it, it makes a difference.
One thing that you do is you take the time to study women not just in your backyard, but
(20:03):
around the world.
You travel extensively.
However, you travel with a purpose.
Can you share what that is and where did that come from for, for you?
So I always had this feeling.
I, my, my, we travel a lot.
And the, at first, I always had the feeling that I'm living behind everybody.
(20:27):
And so what I did, what I started doing was whenever I went somewhere because my focus
was on health, I know that people do things differently.
I mean, everything that I have, all the research that I have done, we've looked at people all
over the world.
How, how is it that these people are living to be 110 and these people?
(20:49):
So I decided to incorporate my travels in gathering information so I can share it with, with my
clients.
And so if you can know what a woman in India does for self care.
And if you want to try that and see if it works for you, then, you know, that, that's a benefit.
(21:11):
And so that's how I've, every time I travel, I try to do a little bit of research as to
what works for women.
Before I look at what health and wellness means to women in that part of the world.
And then I share it with my followers.
Beautiful.
That is really, really uplifting.
And it's so true that, you know, all these different places across the world have figured
(21:33):
out part of the puzzler, the deep mysteries of what constitutes for good wellness and health.
If you could share with our clients, you know, something that, I mean, our listeners,
that you've learned from your clients, things that can kind of help springboard a woman to,
like, you know, be taking a little bit better care of herself.
(21:55):
Or I know that a lot of what we've gone over is the work that we need to do within to feel
that we value ourselves enough to take care of ourselves.
But do you have any kind of, like, self-care practices or things that you think really kind
of help a woman's, a woman's overall wellness?
I would say that the first, what I would recommend is always being grateful for the breath you
(22:23):
take.
You wait, you know, it's a privilege for us to be here, to be breathed in.
And I had a client once that came to me with, she was having a really tough time with her,
her mom.
And I asked her to write every morning, just write about something that you're thankful for
(22:49):
your, let your mom, about your mom.
And then every night before you go to bed, I want you to just write something.
Just if it's two things, just think about two things that you're thankful.
And by the end of our session, I could not, it was such a changed person.
And what was enlightening was that that was the thing she came up with.
She says, I am thankful that my mom gave me life.
(23:11):
And her relationship was horrible with her mom.
But for her to come up with that, she couldn't think of anything big.
So she thought this was a really small thing.
And we were able to build on that one, your mom gave you the ability to breathe.
And because of that ability to, to be alive, look at all that you have done with the one
(23:32):
breath your mom gave you.
That's what I would suggest.
I go to advice to everybody, it's always, always start your day with thank you and end it with
thank you.
So gratitude.
And once you start doing that, you start noticing things about yourself that you appreciate
and you actually love.
(23:54):
So it's a, it's a, it's a general thing to do.
But if you keep at it and remember, everything has to be done for about 22 days before it
becomes a habit.
And you just practice, practice.
And you'll see that every morning you wake up, the first thing you think about is what am
I, what am I thankful for today?
And when before you go to bed, what went well and what am I grateful for?
(24:18):
I think that's, that's my advice to every, not just women, but everybody.
You know what I'm so profound about all that?
It is so simple and so natural.
And so an eight.
However, we are conditioned out of our own innate behavior into something darker and obviously
(24:42):
just takes over our lives.
Yes.
We have to unlearn and relearn what we were actually gifted with.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I can share just one other thing.
I am another thing that we can try to do is if you look at a three year old, I always say
see life as a child.
(25:03):
They have so much enthusiasm, their love and their forgiving.
They, you know, they are not afraid.
They're not afraid and they don't know.
They can't criticize themselves because they don't have that ability.
So if you can see yourself, think of yourself as a three year old and try to build on all the
(25:26):
things that you were as a three year old and repeat them and just expand on them, that
makes a big difference.
I have an addendum to that.
Whenever I started doing this practice, whenever I see a person somewhere, train a stranger,
being an absolute jerk, right, to someone else, I think of them as a three year old.
(25:48):
Yes.
Yes, yes.
That works too, yes.
Well, this has just been so illuminating to talk to you and I just think that your story
and the way that you, you know, just changed your own narrative on the importance of sharing
(26:11):
your story and what it means to connect to other women around what's happening on the
inside that's affecting, you know, their outside.
It's just been so refreshing to chat with you.
So thank you for sharing your insights.
Thank you.
So for having me, I appreciate it.
Yeah, it's been a long courtship you and I getting to this.
(26:33):
Yes.
Yes.
I have to tell you, for my end, it was worth every minute.
I know.
It was a little touchy.
You have a very busy life.
You have a very busy life with a lot of things on the go.
We appreciate you actually taking the time to do this with us.
We cannot thank you enough for taking the time to do that.
(26:57):
And how do people get in touch with you?
Tell us about your website and where can people connect with you?
So my website is girlfriendshelp.com.
I'm also on Facebook, Dr. Ann Marie Wade and as well as Instagram, Girlfriends_Health.
(27:17):
And that's my Instagram.
I would ask everybody to follow me on Instagram.
And my focus, I would like to just say this really quick, is my focus is on cardiovascular
health, heart health.
And I work with women who want to prevent heart disease.
(27:39):
And if you're interested, you could just check out the programs that I offer on my website,
girlfriendshelp.com.
Fantastic.
Thank you so much.
And you have been listening to The Virgin, The Beauty and Up Bitch.
Like us, like us, share us.
Bring your friends.
Come on back.
Let's talk some more.
To become a partner in the VBB community, we invite you to find us at virginbeautybitch.com.
(28:07):
Like us on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.
And share us with people who are defiantly different.
Like you.
Until next time.
Thanks for listening.
(upbeat 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?
What is health and what is wellness?
(00:24):
Should you be concerned with one over the other?
Well for clarity, we're happy to welcome a woman who established her career as a professor
with a PhD in nursing.
We welcome Dr. Anne-Marie Wait to Virgin Beauty Bitch.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for having me.
I'm very delighted to be here with you both.
(00:46):
We are double delighted.
Now, Anne-Marie, as soon as a visitor lands on your website, this is what they see and
I really love this introduction.
Hello.
I'm Dr. Anne-Marie Wait.
And I warmly welcome you to Girlfriend's Health.
I'm here to embark on a profound journey of well-being and self-discovery with you.
(01:10):
Anne-Marie, I have to admit, no traditional nurse has ever said anything close to that
to me.
What is Girlfriend's Health and how does the title nurse play into what you offer here?
Oh, I'm so glad you asked Chris because there is a story behind the name Girlfriend's Health.
(01:31):
And there's also a story behind the reason why I am the kind of nurse that I am.
And I think sometimes our stories, we don't cheer them, but it's important that we do
because without that story, we wouldn't be who we are.
(01:52):
And so that has been my mission.
I'm hoping that in my story, by sharing it, can help other women to find their voice, first
of all, and to also help them to celebrate their uniqueness because every one of us are
unique.
So I became a nurse and it has always been my passion to be healthy.
(02:20):
And I gained that passion because my father died when he was 43 years old.
And from that, I was 12 at the time when he died.
And from that experience, I just dove into learning what it takes so that I would not follow
(02:42):
in his footsteps.
And that, I think, it almost gave me a mission.
And my mission was to seek out how to just maintain wellness because you know, you say health
and wellness.
So health is the goal.
But wellness is the process that you have to take.
(03:03):
It's the activities that you have to do in order to achieve that goal.
And so by the time I decided to go back to nursing school, I had already been married and had
two children and it was not a good relationship.
But because of my, I guess, my belief system that my life was just not what it was at the
(03:31):
time.
I decided to leave that marriage and had the courage to leave that marriage and also to pursue
a career as a nurse.
I am, everybody always asked me why, you know, if you're going to get a PhD and why didn't
you just go back, why didn't you just be a medical doctor?
(03:52):
But that wasn't my goal.
I just wanted to be well.
I just wanted to be healthy.
And so my journey as a nurse really started out in teaching me the things that I should
do in order to be healthy.
And it also, it really started because when I had my kids, I was very young and I wanted
(04:17):
to know how, I wanted to know how to take care of them, not only on a general level, but
about their development, about their mental health.
I wanted to do the holistic part of raising kids.
And so that's what nursing did for me.
So I was able to learn the physiology of the person, the human being, but also my goal was
(04:42):
to look deeper, not just, and I never, I have never adopted the theory that you need medication
to get better.
My thing was, your body can take care of itself.
You have a system that is capable of healing and you just got to let it work.
And so as I went through nursing, I decided that it was a journey.
(05:07):
It really was a journey for me because everything that I did, I didn't realize it at the time.
I was seeking happiness, that journey that I was on.
And so because I wasn't quite clear on what happiness, true happiness is, I gave it a
(05:29):
meaning.
I said, well, then it must mean that I need to climb to the top of my ladder professionally.
And that's what I pursued.
I just started climbing and climbing and going higher.
With that, I developed a lot of insight, growth.
And I realized, you know, when I got to the top, I still wasn't happy.
(05:51):
It didn't, it's okay.
I should be thrilled.
I should be so happy, but I wasn't because it was then that I realized that happiness,
it's not on the outside.
It's not something you seek.
It comes from inside.
And I then started to teach differently because by then I was a nursing professor and I
(06:15):
just changed the way my outlook and the way I did things.
And that was when I decided that sharing my story, that my story was not mine.
It really, and I don't have to, I didn't tell my story a lot because really I wasn't very,
I guess I was ashamed of it.
(06:35):
And when I had the awareness that in order for me to be happy and because my purpose was
to serve others, then I knew that my story had a meaning.
It had a meaning and in order for it to help others, if I want to serve others, I need to
share my story because there's so many women going through the same things that I've gone
(06:57):
through.
And if I don't open up and show them that I'm vulnerable and I've been there and this
is how I was able to climb out of it, then they wouldn't have that understanding that
there's somebody else out there just like me.
And so that's the reason why I decided to share my story on my website.
(07:22):
And that's also the reason why I chose to go into business as a different type of nurse.
You know, even I struggled a lot with Western medicine, the way we treat things.
And this was my way of just embracing the holistic model that we are perfect as we are and we
(07:47):
just got to accept ourselves and we have to learn how to depend.
We have a community for support, but everything that we have is already in us and we just need
to know how to stand in it and allow it to help us to grow.
So, I'm so happy to be here with you.
(08:08):
And what's speaking out to me and what you shared there is that there are so many foundational
pieces to your story that helped to shape how you want to work with your clients and work
with women.
So when I hear the girlfriend approach, can you just kind of walk me through what that
means to you?
Because you seeing a woman's journey with her own health and wellness, you know, as understanding
(08:34):
her own story and maybe the ways that she's either neglected her own health or been ashamed
of certain parts of it and not talked about it.
What does the girlfriend aspect of it mean to you?
And how does that show up with your clients?
Okay, so girlfriend came about because my daughter when she was growing up, she went through
(08:55):
a period of searching for herself and I was very connected to both my kids.
I was a school nurse because I wanted to be in their lives.
And one of the times when I was at her school as a teenager, she didn't want her friends
(09:15):
to know that her mother was watching over her.
And so she said to me, "Can we not tell anybody that you are my mother?"
And you know, rather than being hurt and you know, like how I said, "Well, what would you
like us to be?"
And she said, "Well, we, how about we are just girlfriends?"
(09:38):
And we became girlfriends and she would introduce me as her girlfriend.
But I said, "We can be girlfriends as long as you remember that girlfriends share.
They share things about their lives.
If they're having a rough time, if they're having a great time, that's what girlfriends
mean.
So if you, we are going to be girlfriends, that's the understanding that we have.
(10:00):
And we accepted it.
And to this day, she still calls me girlfriend.
And so when I decided to start my own business, that name was very important.
And I am a women's health nurse practitioner.
So my clients are mostly women.
And so it was just natural that that's what I would call my business girlfriend's health
(10:24):
because my, the focus is on girlfriends.
And the other reason why it's called girlfriend is because I understand that the relationship
between a mother and a daughter is so significantly important as to how that daughter is going
to grow up.
(10:45):
And it also affects her health.
We have done a lot of research showing where when the bonds between a mother and daughter
is not strong or it's been broken, that these women tend to have health issues that are
preventable if, you know, if they had had a better relationship with their moms.
(11:05):
So that is the, that is the significance of how girlfriends came together because I want
to, that's one of the programs that I'm trying to put together to, you know, offer workshops
or moms and daughters.
We had it before COVID, but then COVID shut us down.
And so I'm still trying to bring it back.
(11:26):
But to your question, Heather, it's, it's just, it's a message to women to help to empower
them, to let them know that they have the power to step into their, their own story and
to acknowledge who they are and able, and they're able to heal themselves.
(11:47):
And it doesn't matter how old you are.
It doesn't matter, you know, what, what your past has been that I truly believe that you
have that power.
You just have to own it.
You just have to step into it.
And, and I also want to encourage women to share their stories because that's how we grow.
It's how we, we're going to help each other.
You know, a big, a big word that comes up over and over and over again in our, as we've been
(12:11):
doing this podcast for a few years, is vulnerability, that ability to open yourself up and allow others
to see where, where you hurt, right?
Because that is the beginning of the healing, is being able to open up and allow that, to
see the sun and to absorb that energy.
(12:33):
It's interesting to me that you were so warm and welcoming with your daughter because in,
in the only website you say, I battled such insecurity that I couldn't even name three things
I liked about myself.
There was a time when self-doubt clouded my aspirations.
And for you to come from that, to now being told by your daughter, I don't want you to be
(12:58):
my mother, quote unquote, I want you to be my, that is a profound,
profound shift in your own self-identity.
Yes.
I think it speaks to the growth that had taken place because I was now at a point where
(13:19):
I felt responsible for her.
And I knew, I recognized what was happening with her.
She was going through a change in life and she needed to be able to find herself.
So I knew, I knew that us calling each other girlfriend didn't mean that I was in her mom,
but it was given her the strength.
(13:41):
And I didn't want to push her away.
If I had said, no, absolutely not, I'm not going to, you know, this is ridiculous.
That would have put up a wall between us.
And so, I mean, I hope that what people can get out of it is to show that there are other
ways that we can help someone.
We don't have to shut them down.
(14:02):
We can meet them where they are at.
And that way, then we can have a working relationship.
That just takes such profound self-awareness.
It really does.
Because I don't know how many mothers would have responded the way you did with your daughter.
Right?
What was your relationship with your mother as a mother?
(14:24):
It wasn't very good.
It wasn't a good one.
And so that's why I was healing myself from that relationship.
And part of what I was trying to establish between my daughter and I was breaking that chain
that it just goes around and around.
(14:46):
And if I had said that to my mother, she would have disowned me.
She would have said, if you don't want to call me mother, then let's just end it.
And so I was coming from there.
I knew that.
And so I was always working against, not repeating the same story so that it would continue.
(15:08):
And so I had to be an example to my daughter.
And so in the end, it worked out.
And I'm happy for that.
Throughout our show over the years, it's really become very apparent that some women
struggle with their own health and wellness because of the body shame that we feel or just
(15:34):
not being given enough tools or language when we were younger to say that what my body
is going through matters, so much shame and guilt around even periods and menstruation.
And after that, menopause.
And I'm just wondering from your perspective, what you found helpful to work women through
(15:54):
some of the insecurities that they carry to not let that inhibit them being an advocate
for their own health.
Have you found in your conversations with clients kind of ways for them to push through
some of the shame or guilt and really kind of prioritize themselves?
(16:15):
Yes.
I, it's a very good question.
I have found that behind all those blame and shame that we carry for our own ourselves,
there is a belief attached to it.
There is something that we were told.
(16:38):
My insecurity came from me being told when I was young that I'm not enough.
I'm not good enough.
And so I grew up thinking that it wasn't okay for me to shine my light because I wasn't
good enough.
And I have found that a lot of women who have this belief that they do not like certain parts
(16:59):
of their body, they were told something.
And so we have to go back.
I usually have this sort of exercise.
I have them identify what it is because we have these voices in our heads and we listen
to them.
You know, we listen to them over and over and it's really, we can't figure out where it
(17:20):
came from but it's there.
And I have them go back.
It's a visualization process and they go back to the very first time they heard a phrase,
that phrase, whatever the phrase is that they're telling themselves.
And it usually nine out of ten times it is when they were very young.
(17:42):
And that's what they have stuck with.
It's stuck in their head and they believe that.
And the good news is that you can change those beliefs.
You don't have to continue repeating that same belief that you have.
You can, it's a habit.
It's a habit that you've developed to repeat those negative thoughts and you also have to
(18:06):
go back and then rewrite those that belief.
So you, they, I have them identify the thought that there's have same to themselves and then
we rewrite it.
We rewrite it into something positive.
And then they work on that.
They work on that every day because when you remember you, if you're a 30 year old woman
(18:29):
with this negative belief, you've been saying it for 30 years.
So you can't expect that it's going to go away within a week.
It's something that you have to embrace and you have to start believing it.
And I, and it's not only rephrasing it in a positive way.
You have to feel it.
You have to, when you say something, then imagine yourself being that something and feeling
(18:55):
it.
How does it feel in your body?
And so that's the exercise that I do with them.
And it really, I, it works so well because, you know, they have done studies where people,
they have people pretend that they're playing the piano and they have people who are actually
playing the piano.
(19:15):
They visualize themselves playing the piano and they found that the people who pretended
that they just saw them self-playing it got the same experience as the people who are
actually playing it.
And that's how powerful visualization is.
And so it works.
It works.
It works for people who are trying to lose weight and they can't, there's a belief system
(19:39):
in their head that they're not letting go.
And once they can identify it and change it around, then it, it seems to break that, that
the second has a hold on you.
And once you can do that, it, it makes a difference.
One thing that you do is you take the time to study women not just in your backyard, but
(20:03):
around the world.
You travel extensively.
However, you travel with a purpose.
Can you share what that is and where did that come from for, for you?
So I always had this feeling.
I, my, my, we travel a lot.
And the, at first, I always had the feeling that I'm living behind everybody.
(20:27):
And so what I did, what I started doing was whenever I went somewhere because my focus
was on health, I know that people do things differently.
I mean, everything that I have, all the research that I have done, we've looked at people all
over the world.
How, how is it that these people are living to be 110 and these people?
(20:49):
So I decided to incorporate my travels in gathering information so I can share it with, with my
clients.
And so if you can know what a woman in India does for self care.
And if you want to try that and see if it works for you, then, you know, that, that's a benefit.
(21:11):
And so that's how I've, every time I travel, I try to do a little bit of research as to
what works for women.
Before I look at what health and wellness means to women in that part of the world.
And then I share it with my followers.
Beautiful.
That is really, really uplifting.
And it's so true that, you know, all these different places across the world have figured
(21:33):
out part of the puzzler, the deep mysteries of what constitutes for good wellness and health.
If you could share with our clients, you know, something that, I mean, our listeners,
that you've learned from your clients, things that can kind of help springboard a woman to,
like, you know, be taking a little bit better care of herself.
(21:55):
Or I know that a lot of what we've gone over is the work that we need to do within to feel
that we value ourselves enough to take care of ourselves.
But do you have any kind of, like, self-care practices or things that you think really kind
of help a woman's, a woman's overall wellness?
I would say that the first, what I would recommend is always being grateful for the breath you
(22:23):
take.
You wait, you know, it's a privilege for us to be here, to be breathed in.
And I had a client once that came to me with, she was having a really tough time with her,
her mom.
And I asked her to write every morning, just write about something that you're thankful for
(22:49):
your, let your mom, about your mom.
And then every night before you go to bed, I want you to just write something.
Just if it's two things, just think about two things that you're thankful.
And by the end of our session, I could not, it was such a changed person.
And what was enlightening was that that was the thing she came up with.
She says, I am thankful that my mom gave me life.
(23:11):
And her relationship was horrible with her mom.
But for her to come up with that, she couldn't think of anything big.
So she thought this was a really small thing.
And we were able to build on that one, your mom gave you the ability to breathe.
And because of that ability to, to be alive, look at all that you have done with the one
(23:32):
breath your mom gave you.
That's what I would suggest.
I go to advice to everybody, it's always, always start your day with thank you and end it with
thank you.
So gratitude.
And once you start doing that, you start noticing things about yourself that you appreciate
and you actually love.
(23:54):
So it's a, it's a, it's a general thing to do.
But if you keep at it and remember, everything has to be done for about 22 days before it
becomes a habit.
And you just practice, practice.
And you'll see that every morning you wake up, the first thing you think about is what am
I, what am I thankful for today?
And when before you go to bed, what went well and what am I grateful for?
(24:18):
I think that's, that's my advice to every, not just women, but everybody.
You know what I'm so profound about all that?
It is so simple and so natural.
And so an eight.
However, we are conditioned out of our own innate behavior into something darker and obviously
(24:42):
just takes over our lives.
Yes.
We have to unlearn and relearn what we were actually gifted with.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I can share just one other thing.
I am another thing that we can try to do is if you look at a three year old, I always say
see life as a child.
(25:03):
They have so much enthusiasm, their love and their forgiving.
They, you know, they are not afraid.
They're not afraid and they don't know.
They can't criticize themselves because they don't have that ability.
So if you can see yourself, think of yourself as a three year old and try to build on all the
(25:26):
things that you were as a three year old and repeat them and just expand on them, that
makes a big difference.
I have an addendum to that.
Whenever I started doing this practice, whenever I see a person somewhere, train a stranger,
being an absolute jerk, right, to someone else, I think of them as a three year old.
(25:48):
Yes.
Yes, yes.
That works too, yes.
Well, this has just been so illuminating to talk to you and I just think that your story
and the way that you, you know, just changed your own narrative on the importance of sharing
(26:11):
your story and what it means to connect to other women around what's happening on the
inside that's affecting, you know, their outside.
It's just been so refreshing to chat with you.
So thank you for sharing your insights.
Thank you.
So for having me, I appreciate it.
Yeah, it's been a long courtship you and I getting to this.
(26:33):
Yes.
Yes.
I have to tell you, for my end, it was worth every minute.
I know.
It was a little touchy.
You have a very busy life.
You have a very busy life with a lot of things on the go.
We appreciate you actually taking the time to do this with us.
We cannot thank you enough for taking the time to do that.
(26:57):
And how do people get in touch with you?
Tell us about your website and where can people connect with you?
So my website is girlfriendshelp.com.
I'm also on Facebook, Dr. Ann Marie Wade and as well as Instagram, Girlfriends_Health.
(27:17):
And that's my Instagram.
I would ask everybody to follow me on Instagram.
And my focus, I would like to just say this really quick, is my focus is on cardiovascular
health, heart health.
And I work with women who want to prevent heart disease.
(27:39):
And if you're interested, you could just check out the programs that I offer on my website,
girlfriendshelp.com.
Fantastic.
Thank you so much.
And you have been listening to The Virgin, The Beauty and Up Bitch.
Like us, like us, share us.
Bring your friends.
Come on back.
Let's talk some more.
To become a partner in the VBB community, we invite you to find us at virginbeautybitch.com.
(28:07):
Like us on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.
And share us with people who are defiantly different.
Like you.
Until next time.
Thanks for listening.
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