The Femme Cast
Welcome to The Femme Cast—the podcast for women who are truly ready to break free from toxic relationship cycles, choose themselves, and become a magnet for the love they deserve.
I’m Maria Rei, aka The Femme Coach—Master Energy Healer, Radical Self-Love Leader, and Relationship Mentor. I’ve been where you are, stuck in cycles of chasing love, waiting for validation, and abandoning myself in the name of relationships. But I turned my pain into purpose, and now I’m here to help you do the same.
Each week, I share personal stories, actionable insights, and a blend of spiritual and practical tools to help you heal from past wounds, reclaim your self-worth, and rewrite your love story. You’ll hear everything from vulnerable truths about my own journey to breaking toxic patterns to empowering lessons that will guide you toward creating the healthy, loving relationships you crave.
Join me as we say goodbye to self-abandonment, people-pleasing, and unhealthy dynamics, and hello to radical self-love, emotional freedom, and true empowerment.
It’s time to choose yourself and step into the love you were always meant for. Ready?
Let’s do this.
The Femme Cast
Alone But Not Lonely | Why Some of Your Healing Must Happen in Isolation
TRIGGER WARNING: This is the advice I avoided for YEARS because I knew it would force me to face every insecurity I had. But the truth? It was the ONLY thing that finally broke the cycle of toxic relationships and made me a magnet for healthy, loving relationships.
If you keep attracting the same emotionally unavailable partners—the ghosters, the breadcrumbers, the ones who leave you on standby until something “better” comes along—it’s not a coincidence. It’s a pattern. And it’s one I know all too well.
For years, I recycled the same five guys over and over, convinced that this time things would be different. They never were. The game changed when I finally stopped running—from relationships, from my fears, from myself.
The uncomfortable truth? The most transformative thing you can do is to intentionally be alone for a season. Not because you have to, but because your healing depends on it.
This episode of The Femme Cast is your wake-up call. We’re diving deep into:
- Why we chase unavailable partners (and what it really says about us)
- The generational wounds that keep us trapped in toxic cycles
- How being alone becomes your greatest superpower, not your punishment
- The exact steps to shift from chasing love to becoming a magnet for it
Listen now—because if you’re tired of the heartbreak, the disappointments, and the endless cycle of “maybe this time,” this episode might just change everything.
Ready to step into your Magnetic Love Era? If so, The Magnetic Love Story Manifestation Method is now open for enrollment.
https://www.thefemmecast.com/products/courses/view/1180320
Hey guys, what is up? Welcome back to the show. I'm so excited and grateful to have you here. I'm crusty as fuck because I just smashed my middle finger in my the arm of my mic, yay. So it's probably gonna look ugly and purple and blue tomorrow, but it is what it is. And I actually checked in and I said, I asked myself, I said Self, do you still want to record today? And the answer was a big resounding fuck yes. So here we are, welcome back. Welcome if you're new.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:I wanted to answer a question that somebody kind of brought up the other day and I had a really good think about it Because I think I was avoiding answering this question because I realized it would trigger the crap out of so many of you realize it would trigger the crap out of so many of you. I know it would trigger the crap out of me if you had told me, like 10 years ago, that this was literally the answer to my prayers when it came to breaking my toxic relationship cycle and becoming a magnet for healthy love. It was like the one thing I wish nobody would ever tell me at the time, but it is the one thing you really need to fucking hear Like I don't know how many other ways I can say it. There's no way to sugarcoat it. If you want to break the cycle of constantly being caught in unhealthy relationship dynamics, of being in toxic relationships, of being lied to, cheated on breadcrumbs strung along and basically put you know on standby until the next best thing comes along, please listen to me. Okay, the one single thing that you can do right now that is going to change the trajectory of your relationships for the rest of your life is the one thing that you're avoiding doing, and that is being on your own for a season. The amount of transformation that you will move through as a result of actually not being on your own, because you're forced to be, because you hate it, because you wish you had someone with you, because you're looking but you can't find someone. Or maybe you're not looking because you don't think you're good enough to go out there. But deep down there's just longing, this yearning, this desire, this overwhelming desire, almost obsession, to have somebody with you in your life, which I totally get. I'm not judging. I am not judging. This is actually a wound that I believe a lot of women are moving through right now, and it's a wound that has been in our DNA for many generations. Okay, so here's my invitation to you If this sounds like you, if you resonate with the person who has been chasing and waiting for and convincing the ghosters, the breadcrumbers, the situationships, the friends with benefits that never really work out to anything else Listen, take time out, be by yourself and don't just be by yourself and settle for being by yourself because you feel like that's what you have to do, like like that's all your, that's available to you.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:Really take time to be with yourself, like like get to know yourself, spend time with yourself, ask yourself questions what do you need? What do you want? What's hurting, what's sad, what's angry? What do you need to look at? What do you need to move through? What have you been ignoring, neglecting, what is a priority for you that maybe you've been putting on the back burner because you've been so busy chasing after? God knows what you've been chasing after, because God knows what. I know what I was chasing after. I don't know what you were chasing after, but I know what I was chasing after and there was nothing at the end of that race. Nothing, nothing but heartache, grief, disappointment, loneliness and more trauma and more hurt and more toxicity. So please do yourself a favor.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:I know it's a cliche, but they say that crazy is. The definition of crazy is doing. You know, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. What could you possibly stand to gain from doing the exact same thing you've been doing for the last? I don't know how many years that you've been in this. It's complicated relationship status with one or more people. What do you possibly have to gain from going out there and going to the same places to meet them? Or having the same stale conversations online? Or, you know, going to the same bars, or, you know, re-dipping into the same pool of people who already hurt you the last time this was me, oh my God.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:There was a post online the other day and it said there's two people in the world. There's the people who you know keep going after the same partner, and then there's the people who you know keep going after the the the same partner, um, and then there's the people who actually like I can't remember what they said same partner, and those people actually go out with somebody that they're not like used to going out with. I go. And then there's the recyclers, which I was, I had the same pond of people like probably like five, five people that I would just like keep recycling, and I would get to the end of the recycling thing and I would go right back to the beginning and start with number one, two, three, four, five, then go back to the beginning. I swear to God, I dated the same fucking five guys over and over again, but anyway, and none of them ever worked out. None ever worked out.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:It was just such a waste of my time and energy and love and, believe me, I had so much love to give but it was just like I was just hung up on this idea or this notion that I needed to find somebody. You know, and if I think back to where I was in those moments, you know, before I went on my relationship hiatus, you know I was going from relationship to relationship to relationship and again you know the same. You know we're cycling. I was going from one to the next and you know, always knowing something was missing, always knowing what was waiting for me at the end of that relationship, which was nothing more than disappointment and hurt and heartbreak. And yet I kept going back and it was like there was a part of me that needed to convince myself that it was going to be different this time. But it wasn't.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:I would go into it thinking I was being different than I'm. This time I'm going to do things differently. I'm going to do things better. I'm going to show up like this I'm going to whatever change about myself you know, whether it's my looks, or how I talk, or how I laugh, or how I, whatever I would come into the relationship thinking everything was going to be different this time. Maybe we different for the first couple of weeks, but then, slowly, old patterns would start to come back and the relationship would end up just as much as a hot mess as it was the last time, sometimes even more so, because now you've got this accumulation of hot mess that wasn't there the last time, and it was. It just became so exhausting. And when I think back to why I kept doing that, you know when I, when I think of those, those are those really key moments.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:Between each of those relationships there was this unsettled feeling of of I'm on my own right. Between relationships. One ended and before I decided to move on and start chasing the next one, there was this brief and didn't last very long. It's very quick, because as soon as you feel it, that's the moment that you're out there trying to fill that void with the next person right. So you feel this hint of I'm alone now, and then there's this fear of like what if I'm always alone? What if I never find somebody? What if the last guy was as good as it got? What if Mr Right was right in front of me all along? And I know I blew it. I totally blew it. I did something wrong, I misread the situation, I was too hard on him, my expectations were too high. You know, maybe things would have changed, like, if I, you know, gave it one more week. Maybe they would have became the man of my dreams if I just waited that one more week. Please, baby, just take a breath. Okay, listen. Please, baby, just take a breath, okay, listen.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:One thing we always forget, you know we have to, when people show us who they are and again I'm throwing cliches left, right and center today when people show you who they are, believe them. You know, when you dated somebody for a couple of months, or you know, it really only takes a few weeks, but even like, if you've dated somebody for a couple of months and or you know it really only takes a few weeks. But even like, if you've dated somebody for a couple of months and they've continuously showed you who they are, you got to believe it. Like there's. There's, yeah, people change, but you know what they have to want to change.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:And usually when we're in these relationships, thinking that they're going to somehow become the relationship that we're looking for, instead of just coming into the relationship that we've always wanted, it never works out. You know, and at the, at the core of a lot of this, this dysfunction and sorry, I'm pulling up my notes right now the core of a lot of this dysfunction is this fear that we're not going to find somebody, the fear that that's as good as it gets. There's this FOMO that we get that if we leave a relationship, it's somehow going to miraculously become the perfect man. He's somehow going to become the perfect man as soon as we leave him. I don't know what that is exactly. I don't know how to put my like, how to what that or how exactly it's like. It's like it's like partner FOMO, I don't know.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:Or like situationship FOMO. I don't know what it is, but there's this thing that, oh my God, what if I leave him and tomorrow he realizes he loves me, or he becomes the perfect partner, or he's the perfect partner with the next chick that he goes out with? You know, and you just think, okay, I'll just have this one more conversation, I'll say this one more week, we'll, we'll go on that one last date and I'll see how it goes. And then maybe that time they're a little bit better and they treat you a little bit kinder and they're like see, it's all turning around, but it doesn't. They've shown you who they are. They've shown you who they are many times, and the reason why this is so hard is because for many of us, it is uncomfortable being alone, because when we're alone, when we're not chasing, when we're not running, when we're not convincing, when we're not putting all of our energy into trying to get them to be with us, we have no choice but to look at the parts of ourselves that feel uncomfortable, and that is the part that we're really running from, and so them running from us is really just a mirror reflection of how we're running from ourselves, because as we're chasing them, we're running from ourselves.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:As they're running from us, they're showing us how we're running from ourselves. So the key to stopping all of the madness is just stop fucking running from yourself. You know, take a time out, spend time with yourself, fill those uncomfortable voids and those uncomfortable feelings and thoughts and beliefs and fears that come up for you when you think about not being with somebody. You know all those parts of you are parts that need your love and attention and you know they're there for a reason. And as long as you keep going out there and running after them, thinking they're going to fill all those voids for you, you're going to keep attracting toxicity. So the key to breaking the cycle of attracting toxic relationships is to pause, pause and reflect.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:What is it that I'm needing? What is it that I'm feeling? What is it that I'm afraid of? What is it that I'm believing about? Love that is making me feel like I'm unworthy to experience it, or that it's not available to me, or that it's not safe for me. You know, look at all of that stuff and really start to move through all those little parts of yourself that has convinced herself that she's not worthy of love, that she's never going to be loved, that she's afraid to be alone. Because, because, why, why are you afraid to be alone? You know that's a very important question to ask yourself again.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:You know, like I think I think it goes a lot deeper and I think that collectively, as women, we are moving through this sort of generational wound of feeling like we need someone there in order to be okay. I know I felt it, I still feel it, sometimes like to say that it's completely gone. It's not like it's tied into so many. It's tied into not just emotional support, but like it's almost, it's almost, in essence, tied into how safe we feel in the world. You know, and it's very real and especially as you start to get older, I feel like it gets, it almost becomes more alive, I think. And a lot of that is upbringing, a lot of that is what we're taught, you know, growing up. A lot of it is really generational right, and I think that we're we're really coming into a era where we're being called or invited to kind of break those patterns and break those generational beliefs that we've been holding on to for so long.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:And that's not to say that we can't have love. Of course we can. I believe everyone in this planet is worthy of love and can have love in a healthy and uplifting way that feels safe and supportive and nurturing. But I think that that can only happen after we've done the inner work on ourselves and when we don't need it to fill a void or to mask a pain or to contradict a belief that we have about ourselves. That's our work, that's our commitment to that relationship, that's cleaning up our side of the fence right, and only when we do that work are we actually going to be a match for a healthy partner. And that's the work that so many of us are avoiding by going from partner to partner to partner to partner to partner, because we just keep putting all the onus on them to fix whatever's going on on the inside for us, when in reality what we need to do is take a time out, go within, feel the stuff, get to know the stuff, talk to the stuff and then start to rework the stuff so we can attract better stuff on the outside.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:It's really that simple and I know it's the icky work, but this part of your journey can be beautiful and it can be magical. And you know I always say this your time, on your own. If you're doing like, I don't want to say you're doing it right or wrong, because there's no real right or wrong way to do it. There's times where it's going to feel uncomfortable and there's times where it's not, and that's all fine. But the goal, I'll say this the goal is to get to the place where you can be, journal your thoughts and your feelings out on a piece of paper, with your favorite herbal tea and your music playing in the background. Or, you know, taking yourself out on dinner dates, you know taking yourself on vacations and trips of a lifetime, because it's something that you've always wanted to do.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:And maybe you've waited and this is the I'm speaking from very personal experience right now. Maybe you've waited your entire life for somebody to do that with and that person never came along. And now it's like you know what fuck it? I'm gonna do it for me, with me, and have the time of your life and enjoy this time on your own and learn to discover yourself All the stuff you've been avoiding, all the stuff you've been neglecting, all the stuff you've been insecure about letting it all just be there and spending time with it. And this is what true self-love means.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:Self-love is not about gaslighting yourself into believing that you love your thick thighs when you don't, I don't. I don't love my thick thighs, I don't love my wobbly bits. I probably never will, and that's fine. But I can recognize that, even though there's some things about myself that I'm not crazy about, I can still love myself because I can still see the parts that are beautiful, the parts that deserve love. And you know what? I may not be perfect, but nobody is, and that's okay. And I can accept that I'm imperfect and I can accept that there's parts of me that maybe I don't love, but I am choosing to accept and embrace and make the best of because I deserve it and I am worthy of love and I am worthy of my own love and my own acceptance.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:And rather than, you know, berate myself, especially when oh my God, especially when it comes to weight, rather than berate myself over, you know, whatever's going on or whatever I feel isn't good enough or up to standard or worthy of love, rather than do that is focus on all the things about myself that I know are worthy of love, that I know are good, that I know bring value, that I know are worth loving and of high value. And yeah, maybe there are some imperfect things, but those get to be there and they don't get to negate all the other things that make me amazing. Do you know what I mean? And I can work with those bits. I can work with the wobbly bits. I'll find ways to work with the wobbly bits. I'm not going to let them hold me back frombly bits. I'm not going to let them hold me back from my life. I'm not going to let them hold me back from love and I'm certainly not going to let them hold me back from being able to appreciate who I am and what I bring to a relationship. And that's kind of it in a nutshell.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:You know and that's the beauty of you know, really taking the time out to sit with again all your fears about relationships, all your beliefs about what you deserve in a relationship, all your fears about being without a relationship and what that means about you and all the little parts of yourself that maybe you feel uncomfortable to be fully seen and witnessed in a relationship. You know how can you get closer and intimate and more connected with all of that and bring that into deeper understanding and bring your own wants, needs, feelings and desires to the forefront of your conversations with yourself and in your life and then have a partner who comes in and beautifully mirrors that to you. You know, that is a beautiful thing. Do you need to do it for seven years? No, probably not.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:I think I needed to do it for seven years because I had a lot of shit to rewire and I have to preach this shit, so I had to get to a certain level of the game before I could, like you know, share it with you guys. So, no, you don't need to do it for seven years, but you do need to spend some time on your own, and the goal is to get to the point where you can enjoy it and make it feel like your own little love story, instead of something that you do begrudgingly or because you have to, or because you have no choice but to do it. Because you get to, because it gets to be amazing and it gets to be an incredible experience, and because you love spending time with you, because when you love spending time with you, so will everybody else. That is all for today. You guys, let me know in the comments below, or leave a rating and review, or wherever you're seeing this on Apple, itunes or Spotify or wherever. Until next time, you guys, massive love.
