TRANSFORMING TOXIC RELATIONSHIP PATTERNS THROUGH RADICAL SELF-LOVE | MY JOURNEY TO TRUE LOVE AND FULFILLMENT

In today's episode of The Femme Cast, I'll take you on a personal journey of radical self-love. We're diving into the agony of toxic relationships and how I used them to powerfully transform my life.

Specifically, I’ll be sharing about how I once navigated a relationship gushing with love bombing, ghosting, and breadcrumbing, all of which triggered by deepest abandonment wounds and my anxious attachment style. A relationship that was the direct result of me neglecting my own needs and continuously settling for way less than I deserved. 

The turning point came when I chose to prioritize self-love. I began rebuilding my self-esteem and embracing my value. As a result, I broke free from the toxic relationship pattern once and for all. 

I'll share the key principles I embraced: identifying my needs, practicing self-compassion, and seeking nurturing experiences. 

Let’s do this.

Are you ready to create a massive uplevel in your life and relationships? If so, use the link below to book your 90-minute Uplevel + Flow Intensive. This is a powerful 90-minute session where we go deep to energetically shift one relationship pattern you are ready to break free from, so you can magnetize more loving and supportive relationships without the chase...just flow!
https://thefemmecast.com/uplevel-and-flow-intensive

Are you ready to begin your heart healing journey today and manifest the love that you desire? If so, use the link below to register for my Uplevel + Flow Meditation Series . A 3 part series designed to help you heal from heartbreak and manifest love you've always wanted, but never thought you would find.
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Are you ready to rewrite your love story + glow from the inside out as you become a magnet for the love you've always known you deserved? If so, use the link below to register for my 21 Day Radical Self-Love Challenge.
https://thefemmecast.ck.page/21daychallenge

Want more daily inspiration an tips on how you can uplevel your relationships and your life through the art of radical self-love? If so, use the link below to con...

Transcript

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 0:32

Hey guys, what is up and welcome back to the show. I'm so excited and grateful that you're here Today. Might be a little bit of a difficult conversation for me to get through, I'm not gonna lie. Please bear with me as I try and spit the story out, but it is an important story and I did kind of talk about it a little bit on the douchebag diaries, but I do believe that it really deserves a little bit more spotlight than it got, because I really do believe that this was my initiation into this journey of radical self-love that began in this moment that I'm about to share with you today.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 1:08

That being said, it was probably one of the most painful relationships I'd ever experienced. It was very, very, very heavy energetically, very karmic, if you believe in that sort of thing. There was just so much going on here energetically. So you know, as we dive into the story, please be patient with me. This is really about, you know, talking about those relationships where we really settle for less than we want or deserve. Right, and we do this oftentimes when we're people pleasers, when we're struggling with self-doubt and insecurity and perfectionism. You know we always we're so hard on ourselves and we end up settling for these relationships that are so far from what we want or deserve, because we're just afraid that we're not gonna do better. Right, and I'm here to tell you that the exact opposite is true, and this is something that I truly worked really hard to transform, and it took me a while to get the lesson let me tell you Once I finally did. You know, everything got a little bit easier and just a little less painful. So if you're in a situation right now, my heart goes out to you. Please know that. I hear you, I see you, I feel you. There is a path to greater love and healing, but it all starts with you, okay.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 2:28

So you know, going back to the day, you know, as I remember the event or what kind of started this whole pattern, I'm at a party, right, and you know a whole bunch of our friends were gonna be there. I'm, you know I was invited by the douchebag du jour at the time to be at this event. So you know, I arrived fashionably late, as always, but, by the way, I looked and felt my best because he invited me. So I was like, okay, like we're pulling out. Well, I was like, determined to make an impression this night, right. But you know even before that, you know, leading up to this event and the few days prior, I noticed him starting to like pull away, like he had been very engaged in conversation. He was very complimentary, totally like not love bombing me, but affection and attention bombing me, right. And I really felt like, okay, this is a good thing, right, like good things are happening here and I really like I had the highest intention for what was gonna come out of this evening.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 3:27

And then, a few days before, he started to kind of pull away and I didn't really hear from him and then I was like, should I go? Shouldn't I go? I was like kind of debating. I had this like awful gnawing feeling. Trust your feelings, ladies. Trust them. They're there to tell you something. I didn't trust it. I ignored it. I'm like you know what I'm just getting all in my head. He invited me, of course, he wants me to be there, I'm just gonna go.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 3:49

So I got all dolled up, I looked my best. I felt so fucking hot. I show up to the savannah and douchebag du jour is already flirting up with someone else and I'm debating what to do here Like I walk in. Nobody had really seen me yet. So I kind of took my time and I paused and then I kind of slowly walked over and the whole night was just a mind fuck, you know. It was like hey, you're here, good to see you, why are you here? Kind of attitude. You know. It was like on the one hand there was an interest and there was like there was like an entertaining of an attraction, but then on the other hand I was totally being shut down and ignored and pushed away and everything on my body was screaming in me honey, get the fuck out of here, leave, don't come back, run the other direction, do not turn around, do not stop, pasco, like just keep fucking going Right Again. I did not listen to what my instincts were telling me. I did walk away that night, I think, and sort of kind of you know said you know, this isn't really my jam, it's not really what I'm looking for right now. Sorry, not sorry, like bye.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 5:10

And then you know it was funny because after having said that and feeling really empowered and good about it, you know we kind of went back and forth. He would kind of flow back in Affection bombed me and attention bombed me and compliment bombed me for a couple of weeks until he got what he wanted, and then he would ghost again, right, he would keep going bread coming and coming back, bread coming, ghosting, coming back, bread coming, ghosting, coming back. This was his MO. This went on for so long I'm embarrassed to even say I think it was like a year or two that this went on. It was really gross.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 5:45

And this entire time, you know, we would go through this pattern of like where he would like, you know, affection and attention bombed me and you know, like the messages would just be like flooding my inbox, right, and then he would just ghost and disappear. Or he would put me down and then, you know, have me feeling really shitty about myself and then ghost and disappear, or he wouldn't do anything at all, he would just ghost and disappear and I'd be left wondering like, well, what the fuck happens? What did I do? What the fuck happens? What did I do wrong? Right, and it is. You know, it's something that, like I said before, so many of us struggle with. Right, I knew in that moment I was in a relationship with somebody who did not want to be in a relationship with me. I knew that because, even though there was moments in time where it felt like, oh yeah, he does want to be in a relationship, he does love me, he's given me all the attention, he's given me all the compliments, he's flirting with me in tags oh my god. He sent me a winky face.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 6:47

That didn't last very long. For the most part he was ghosting and bread-grumming and ditching and just being completely disrespectful and rude and hurtful. And I was sweeping all of that under the rug because of the few times that they acted like they were into me and they were into having a relationship with me, even though they would then quickly show me that they didn't. I would try to ignore that and I didn't believe what they were showing me. I didn't trust what they were showing me. I didn't trust what I was telling me, which was get the fuck out.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 7:28

You know I was in a space of feeling so hurt, so let down again, not good enough, and always struggling with you know, like what's it gonna take? What's it gonna take for somebody to actually want to be with me? What's it gonna take for someone to actually choose me, to commit to me and to be in a relationship with me and to really and truly love me? I was struggling to find this for so long. Even in my 15-year relationship I didn't feel loved. There was so much distance between us, you know, and that's a conversation for another day.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 8:06

But my biggest problem is I was going from relationship to relationship to the relationship, craving for them to love me, to choose me, to commit to me, and the harder I tried to find this in my world through a relationship, the farther and farther I got from it and the more painful and hurtful that it became. You know so much so that I was in so much pain. I literally went on that seven-year relationship hiatus because I just didn't have it in me anymore to be hurt again by another relationship, to have my heart let down and broke open one more time. It was just too hard and it was too painful and I was just so exhausted from jumping from relationship to the next and trying to find the perfect recipe for who I needed to be in order for them to love me because this was my MO in these relationships that I was settling for so much less than I deserved or ever wanted.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 9:23

Right was to try harder. It's like if they don't want to be with me, if they're not loving me, if they're not committing themselves to me, it's because obviously I'm not enough. I'm not showing up as the version of me that they would want to be with and commit to and love. So how can I try harder to be that person? How can I level up who I am and how I show up? How can I be more patient, more accommodating, more understanding, thinking that one day that they will come around and want to be with me? I just need to give it some time. I just need to keep settling for less and eventually they'll want to give me what I want. And I'm going to continue to be unconditionally loving, to the ghosting, bread crumbing and disrespect that I was receiving in order to get this person to love me.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 10:20

And all the while, all the while, this person would walk all over me and hurt me and disrespect me and then drop me like a hot potato, again and again and again, and each time, some way, somehow we would end up back on the same merry-go-round together. It was such a painful cycle and, like I said, I do believe that this was sort of the beginning of this journey into radical self-love that I went into, because each time we went through this painful merry-go-round together. It got more and more painful than the last until finally it literally broke me down. I literally had nothing left to give anyone really. I mean there was a string of toxic relationships that would follow that would kind of seal the undoing. But this was. It was almost like the beginning of the end of an era. And I can still remember how painful this was and it wasn't my longest relationship by any means or my most committed, but it was probably my most painful because it really opened my eyes to how much I was settling for less than I wanted, how much I was settling for what less than I deserved.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 11:54

And it took a long time, because you hear so much, especially in the spiritual community today, about being unconditionally loving and holding compassion and kindness and forgiving, forgiveness and all these beautiful things and rainbows and roses. But life isn't like that, my friends. Yes, we have to look at the energy behind why sometimes we're attracting certain behaviors, and I can tell you exactly why I attracted this and we'll get into that in a minute. But that doesn't mean you can be loving and grateful and appreciative of an experience and a relationship and what it teaches you about how to love and attract love more powerfully without accepting bad behavior. You know what I mean. You can energetically say okay, thank you, I received the lesson that you've delivered. You, jackass. Now get out the fuck out of my life, because I don't need this kind of hurt and pain and disrespect. I'm no longer available for settling for loss. You know I'm not available for this ghosting and bread crumbing thing that you got going on here. This is not my jam. I'm not available for this shit.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 13:10

But I didn't have the wherewithal to say that, which is really what I needed to say in that moment. You know, I was in the energy of how can I make you love me? I know that you love me, but maybe you haven't realized it yet. So I'm just gonna kind of hang out here and be patient and forgiving and compassionate and loving until you realize what I already know to be true was just that you love me and you wanna be with me. So I'm just gonna sit around here. I know you keep telling me that you don't wanna be in a relationship, but I'm just gonna ignore that because I know deep down that you do. I'm gonna pretend to be happy that we're in this situation ship, when really I'm not.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 13:51

I'm dying inside. I'm in broken pieces. I'm crying constantly. I'm always wondering when is it gonna happen? When is this gonna unfold? How much longer do I really have to do this? Are we really going through this circle again?

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 14:03

Yeah, you know what, if you find yourself in those moments and those situations and can turn around very rarely do they do. And even if they do, do you really want someone who's gonna disrespect you that way and keep you like kicking around on the sidelines while they make up their mind as to whether or not you're the one that they wanna be with? No, get the fuck out. Go live your best life. Maybe then they'll come around, cause this guy always came around when I started living my best life. But you know what? You know, when I dropped the fucking what's it called? I dropped the ball is when he would come around, I would stop living my best life and focus all on him. So until I learned the lesson again and again and again, like I said, it got more and more painful each and every time. Each and every time got so much more painful, but finally I learned. I learned the hard way, but I learned it, and so that's kind of what I'm here to share with you today.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 15:05

Because if you're in the situation where you're kind of going back and forth again and again thinking that what can you do to make them notice you love you, commit to you, want to be with you, call you more often, show up, make plans, plan a vacation, come to a family dinner with you, actually stay over and have breakfast with you, you know what I mean. Stop figuring out what it is you need to do in order to get them to respond to you that way. Or maybe you're just waiting around thinking, like I said, they already love you and you know that they do. You're just waiting for them to realize it or admit it. But you know that they do right, even though they're treating you like crap. They're disrespecting you. They're talking to other women, they're comparing you to other women. You can see them flirting with other women online. You're pretending that it doesn't bother you. You're pretending that you're okay with being in a situation when you're not, and it's just not okay. It's not okay. You deserve better, boo, you deserve so much better, and you know you want more, and the biggest mistake that you're doing to yourself right now is you're pretending to be okay with these kinds of situations, rather than just taking a stand for what you want.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 16:25

All the while, these guys are disrespecting you, ignoring you, not choosing you, abandoning you. And here's the thing often times and I do apologize because there's sirens in the background here right now you know, we blame the person. Oh, they've abandoned me again. Oh, they're not talking to me again. Oh my god, they're flirting with someone else again. Oh my god. Now they've hooked up with this other chick and I'm left, hurt and, you know, feeling completely lost and abandoned and disrespected and I don't know. However, pick up the pieces, honey, sit up.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 19:31

Okay, I will say this the problem is not that you haven't shown up in a way that they can love. The problem is not that they're afraid to admit that they love you. The problem is not that they haven't realized that they love you. The problem is not the guy, and I'm not saying I'm gonna say the problem is you, but I mean that in the most loving way. The problem is you.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 19:57

Here's the thing. And I'm gonna ask you a question how might you be if this guy whoever this guy is for you, right, if you're listening to this and you're going oh my god, this is me, fuck, what the fuck? And he's disrespecting you and he's ignoring you and he's not choosing you and he's abandoning you and ghosting you and breadcrumming you again and again and again Ask yourself how am I disrespecting me? How am I bringing disrespect into my experience? How am I settling for less than I deserve? How am I ignoring my needs, my wants, my goals, my desires? How am I not choosing to prioritize me and to put me first? How am I abandoning myself and my needs in the same way that he's abandoning me?

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 20:51

Because, I will tell you, this man, as painful as it was to begin a relationship with him, was probably my greatest teacher, because what he showed me is how I was continuously disrespecting, ignoring, not choosing me, self-abandoning and ignoring everything that I wanted and needed and was feeling and experiencing, and settling for the lowest of the lowest of standards Because I didn't feel like I deserved better. And so you know, in hindsight, as painful as this relationship was, I have to thank it because it actually kicked my butt and forced me to go down this path of radical self-love, where I learned that I do need to choose me first in order for someone else to choose me. I do need to make myself a priority in order for someone else to make me a priority. I do need to love and accept myself fully in order for someone else to be able to love and accept me. And that doesn't mean that I see myself as perfect. This doesn't mean that I love everything about myself, honey. I don't love my thighs, I never will. I'm not loving my menopausal belly it is what it is, it's there. But I do love myself and I do see the value that I bring in a relationship and I do see the value in what I have to offer and I do pay attention to what my needs and my desires are and I make them a fucking priority in my life Before I make anyone else a priority or making pleasing somebody else a priority. Because I know that when I choose me, when I prioritize me, when I love and accept me, people will come and show up to reflect that back to me.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 22:44

But I have to do it first, and that, my friends, is the hard work, because we're not all wired. I'm not wired. I was never wired to love myself. I was wired to put myself down, to treat myself like I wasn't good enough to believe that everyone else was better than me. So for me, this didn't come easy. This took a lot of work, and that's a lot of what I share when you sign up for my offers and my programs is how to really get into the practice of and really fully believe in and body this, this foundation of radical self-love that you know has the power to transform all of your relationships and your life, because it truly does.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 23:34

You know, when I started to choose me first, prioritize me, love and accept myself for who I was, I started to attract relationships that did the same. I started to attract relationships that easily chose me and I didn't have to go chasing them or begging them or trying to prove my worth to them. I attracted people who would love and support me, people who would show up for me. And this is not just like love, relationships, guys. This is like friendships, family, everything. You know. Everything shifted when I started to put the focus on myself first, showing up for me, first taking care of myself and my needs. This is absolutely the work, and this is literally what transformed my life and kind of what became the foundation of what unfolded, you know, over the next kind of I don't know 10 years or whatever.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 24:28

You know, doing this work and going on that seven-year hiatus and then really dissecting everything that this period taught me. Right, I kind of went through it's kind of my monk era. Literally it's kind of my monk era. I went away, I went up I actually did go up a mountain, I went up to Southeast Asia and I spent time on a mountaintop in a meditation retreat but that's another story for another day. So it was kind of my, it was my Buddhist monk era, where I kind of went and I said, okay, my life sucks, my relationships suck, what the fuck am I going to do with all this crap that I've attracted? But nonetheless, there was wisdom to be taken from it. And you know what I'm so grateful for every one of those experiences, because it brought me to where I am now.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 25:11

So if this is you right, if you have found yourself standing at this precipice, where you're in this like ridiculously unfulfilling situation where you're pretending to be happy with you know having and its complicated relationship status, and you're clearly not happy about it, you know you clearly want more. You clearly want a loving, committed, supportive and expansive romantic relationship and what you're getting is breadcrumbs and ghosting right, and you're you're so hurt, you're in so much pain and you're trying to sweep it under the rug and you're trying to think positive and you're trying to just make the best of it and being loving and compassionate by until they turn around, realize it, come around, whatever. Stop. Stop right there, stop giving, stop chasing, stop asking, stop looking, stop needing, stop reaching out, stop the text, turn off the phone, give it to a friend for a week, and I want you to journal these three things every single day and I want you to watch the magic unfold. What do I, what do I need from these relationships and how can I give that to myself? What am I really longing for from these relationships and how can I give that to myself? And how am I already the most amazing person to be in a relationship with? What is it about me that makes me amazing to be in a relationship with these three things? If you can journal on these three things every single day, I promise you you will transform your life and your relationships.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 26:58

And when you look at what you need, think about asking yourself, really asking yourself what is the thing you really need from this person? What is it that you're longing for? Is it time? Is it affection? Is it attention? Is it compliments? And then how can you give that to yourself? Maybe, if you need compliments or affection, maybe it's writing an affection letter to yourself every day, or buying yourself some flowers or making sure that you're spending quality time with you at the end of the day, kind of snuggling up in your favorite robe and journaling your thoughts and listening to your feelings and really hearing yourself out and responding with love and kindness, right the way you would want to partner to right.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 27:44

Or maybe it's just these feelings of love, of desire, of affection. How can you give more of that to yourself? What can you do today that will make you feel those feelings that you're longing to feel with this person? Maybe it can't be this person, but maybe you can feel love, playing with a pet, or nieces, nephews, family friendships, wherever you can find that connection and feel that sense of love and harmony. You know, go and do that and tap into the feelings and experiences that you want to have with this person. Tap into those feelings and experiences that you want to have for yourself now, for you, with you, with what's available to you and appreciating what's available to you and then really recognizing how much you actually bring to these relationships.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 28:43

Because I will tell you, when you start to, when you start to really start to give yourself what it is that you need, you break this attachment, this anxious attachment style that we often have with these partners right, because now you're not as afraid to lose them because you know you got you. There's nothing that you can't do and provide for yourself. Yeah, a partner is great to have and I love having a partner and I love being in relationship, but I know that I'm okay without it, because I know that and it's a really empowering place to be when you know that you can be in a place without a relationship, because now you ain't settling for those bad decisions anymore, because you have the strength to say, hmm, not for me, I think I will move on. You know, and lovingly, you know very lovingly, you can do that right, but it's about choosing what's right for you and what you will and won't settle for, and that's another thing. Actually, I'm going to give you four things.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 29:45

So the feeling, like the experience you want to have with the person, the feelings that you want to feel, the value that you bring and what it truly is that you desire from a relationship. And now please, ladies, forget the wardrobe, forget the job he has, forget all these things. I want you to look at the fundamental, core things. What do you want in this person? I want them to be affectionate, I want them to be romantic, I want them to be honest, I want them to be trustworthy, I want them to be fully committed to me. I want them to be fully committed to our relationship. I want them to want to be in a long term committed relationship. Right? What are those fundamental qualities that you look for in a partner and where are you not willing to settle anymore?

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 30:35

You know, and we do a lot, we dive a lot more deeper into this and I've got a master class coming up where we're going to kind of, you know, break this down a little bit farther, but this is just to kind of get your feet wet and get you started. So have a think on those questions and let me know where you end up and where you find yourself. I'm curious to know what comes up for you Wherever you're seeing this, whether you're seeing this on socials or wherever you see. You know you listen to your podcast, or maybe you got it in your inbox for me wherever it is. Just hit that reply button, hit that comment button and let me know what comes up for you and how this resonates for you and how you're going to apply what we talked about here today. This is really powerful work and, like I said, we're going to be breaking this down a little bit further in the master class. So make sure you do sign up for that and stay tuned. More details to come on that shortly. That should be coming up in the next couple of weeks or so. But in the meantime, this should you know, kind of get your palate nice and wet and prepare you for what we're going to talk about in this master class. So that is all for today.

MARIA @THEFEMMECAST: 31:33

If you love this episode, please, please, please, do me a huge favor. And, you know, hit that follow button, hit that subscribe button, make sure to leave positive rating and a review wherever you listen to your podcasts. Your reviews and feedback means the world to me and I appreciate every single one that I receive. And you know what? If there's anything else you're dying to know, just message me at Marie at thefemcoachcom. Who knows, you might inspire the next episode of the Femcast. Or send me a DM if you're following on Instagram. Okay, that is all for now, you guys. Until next time, massive, massive love.