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
4 Relationship Shifts That Changed Everything For Me (And Might Just Save You Years of Heartache)
Have you ever wondered why you keep attracting emotionally unavailable partners, draining situationships, or friendships that leave you feeling unseen—even though you’ve been doing so much inner work?
In this episode of The Femme Cast, I’m taking you deep into the four relationship shifts that completely transformed my love life, my friendships, and the way I relate to myself. These weren’t quick mindset hacks or fluffy self-help tips. These were hard-won shifts that cost me comfort, certainty, and some relationships—but gifted me peace, truth, and alignment.
Here’s a peek at what we explore:
- Why “being the nice girl” is keeping you disconnected—from yourself and from others
- The sneaky ways people-pleasing and approval-seeking show up, even after you think you’ve healed
- How bypassing your anger, grief, and resentment blocks your ability to access your power and deeper love
- The difference between healthy compromise and self-abandonment (and how to stop sacrificing your needs just to keep the peace)
We’ll explore how each of these shifts peeled back the layers of my own performative love patterns and helped me rebuild from a place of deep self-worth and emotional safety.
This episode is raw. It’s real. And it’s probably going to challenge some long-held beliefs about what makes a “good” partner, daughter, friend, or woman.
But if you're tired of playing small, being misunderstood, or over-functioning just to be loved—this conversation is going to feel like a breath of truth.
🎧 Listen now and let these powerful shifts plant new seeds in your relationships.
PS: Ready to stop chasing and start attracting?
If so, click the link below for instant access to my most powerful freebies + offers — including the Magnetize Love Meditation Series.
https://www.thefemmecast.com/links
Love, clarity, and major breakthroughs start here.
Hey you guys, what is up and welcome back to the show. I am so excited and grateful that you're here. I have four things that I personally have started to focus on in my relationships that have created a monumental difference in the quality of relationships that I've been calling in, and how like creating, cultivating, healthier, more loving, more balanced relationships, because I think that you know there are a few distortions that I think we bring into our relationships, especially if you know we've been perpetuating toxic patterns in a lot of our relationships, because you know what the reality is is that if you've in a lot of our relationships Because you know what the reality is is that if you've experienced a lot of toxic relationships, chances are you have a lot of toxic traits or conditioning within you, and I know that I had a lot of toxic traits and conditioning within me and it's really been shifting a lot of these patterns and how I look at my relationships and how I show up in my relationships. That I think has made the biggest impact in the quality of the relationships that I'm calling in. And one thing I think that's really important to note and to remember is that when you do make this shift of calling in healthier, more loving relationships. You tend, you know I always say this it's quality over quantity. You may have less relationships around you, but that's okay. You know, less relationships means your standards are higher. You're not out there pleasing everybody and attracting inauthentic relationships or toxic relationships into your space, and you're really attracting just the aligned, healthy relationships that you want to spend your time with, right. So I think that's a very important distinction.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:You know, I would never tell you, you know, if you were somebody who's you know wanted to, you know you know, win a popularity contest, this work is not going to help. You do you know, if you were somebody who's you know wanted to, you know you know, win a popularity contest, this work is not going to help. You do you know, like I mean, I think you know, when we're younger and the obsession to just, you know, be one of the cool kids in the class and just, you know, be popular and and and and really have, like, the most friends of everyone else, it's kind of it's, kind of it's it's, it's really it comes from a toxic place of needing attention and approval. You know, and I think, if, if, when we go down that path, I think we have to ask ourselves what was it that I was missing in myself, ie, me, um, what was it that I was missing in myself? That I needed to have all this popularity or attention or friends to validate who I was as a human being and whether or not I was worthy or valuable. You know what I mean. So, anyways, that's all fun and dandy, but, anyway, these are four shifts that I've made in my relationships, that of how I used to do things versus how I do them now, or how would I look.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:For, you know, and they have made such a significant impact and have totally changed the trajectory of so many of my relationships. A lot of the relationships have to fall by the wayside as a result of what I'm about to share with you, and I mean a lot, but it made room for the right ones to come in. So that's what you have to. That's kind of how you have to look at it. You're letting go, you're letting go of the misaligned relationships so you can call in the healthy ones. Right, and you know, a lot of this does come back to, you know, the people pleasing right as the driving force in a lot of these patterns that needed to be broken um, driving force in a lot of these patterns that needed to be broken.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:Okay, so the first one is authenticity over positivity. Um, I and I don't know when this happened, you know, I I don't think this was something that was always the case, but somewhere in the last decade, like positivity, became such a trend. You know, always having to be positive and and have a positive perspective and have gratitude, and, yeah, these are all well and good, um, but I think that we have lost touch with being authentic. I know I did for a long time. I did not feel comfortable, especially in the last 10 years, really being authentic because I felt like, well, what if I'm honest about what I'm feeling and thinking?
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:And people interpret that as negative. And many times people did interpret it as being negative or being ungrateful, or looking at, you know, not looking at the bright side of things, but you know, when you're in a toxic relationship dynamic, or if you're really struggling with something emotionally and something is coming up for you, or or you're moving through a difficult experience, yes, we can have positive. Yes, we can. We can, we can have a positive perspective in that, you know, recognizing that maybe some good will come from this. Maybe, if we don't see it right, then and there I think we can have gratitude for the things that are showing up to support us, but that doesn't negate the difficulty that we're moving through or the difficult truth that maybe we need to share, or the difficult conversation that I think we need to have, or the boundary that we need to set, like, we still get to do those things and we still get to get pissed off and we still get to call people out for bad behavior. And I think you know we still get to do all those things and we can do all those things and still be positive, but not have to be positive 100% of the time. We get to be a real human with real feelings and real experiences, and I think you know somewhere we lost that we put this just. You know, unrealistic expectation on people to we're meant to experience, you know higher consciousness and come into a higher perspective and be able to view our life and our circumstances from a higher perspective. Yes, 100%, absolutely.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:But first we have to move through the emotional experience of whatever it is that we're experiencing before we can step into the spiritual experience of it. Okay, we experience things on four, on three. Three levels physically, emotionally sorry. Four physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually right. We have to experience all four. We have to experience the feeling in our body. We have to experience the feeling in our emotions. We have to experience all the thought right. And then we have to come to that higher perspective or higher realizations, which is the spiritual experience. And we can't just get stuck in the spiritual experience. We have to move through all of it. We're human beings having, we're spiritual beings having a human experience. We're meant to move through all that emotion. We're meant to move through all that emotion. We're meant to experience pain, anger, resentment, laughter, joy, peace, prosperity, love, shame, guilt, all the things. Because we need to move through them and process the experience and extract the lesson so we can have that higher perspective. We can't just shortcut to the higher perspective. It doesn't work that way. We miss the lesson. We miss the lesson so we can have that higher perspective. We can't just shortcut to the higher perspective. It doesn't work that way. We miss the lesson. We miss the lesson.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:The feeling, the emotions get trapped in us. And then you're calling me for a session so that we can move through all that stuck emotion in your body because it's manifesting crazy shit. Okay, that's what happens. That's why all my clients call me, because they've they've some, some experience. They had that they didn't move through properly. The emotion got stuck in their energetic field somewhere or in their body somewhere. It's creating, it's manifesting like chaos in their life. It's creating blocks, it's creating all kinds of patterns and toxicity that they don't want. And so they come to me so that I can basically move them through that emotional experience, so they can let it go and so they can be free to manifest what it is that they want, right, without that block being there. So you know, that comes from being able to move through an emotional experience and allowing it to be present and take up space, letting it be uncomfortable and then moving through on the other side, and then we can have that higher perspective once we move through it. But too many times we're shaming people for being in the emotional experience of something, and I don't know when this became a trend, but it's got to fucking stop.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:No relationship will ever reach full intimacy and closeness without authenticity. You may think that being positive and having a positive outlook is what your person needs from you, but what your person needs from you, is your authenticity right? And when I say authentic, I mean authentic, I don't mean triggered, I don't mean toxic projections, I don't mean unprocessed trauma. Okay, that's yours to take care of and that's your side of the fence to clean up. And, yes, your partner can hold space for that, right. But ultimately that is your responsibility. But you do have a responsibility to be honest about what you're moving through and how you're feeling and then, you know, be able to kind of come to that higher self, higher perspective on your own when you're ready, okay. So there's a huge difference and I think you know people get that mixed up. They mistake and I think maybe that's where it's gotten a bad rap. Step, they mistake and I think maybe that's where it's gotten a bad rap.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:There's a huge difference between experiencing your emotional body and moving through your emotional body and your emotional experience and projecting negative emotions onto other people. They're two very different things. You can experience and move through something without projecting it on other people right, and you can be real and honest and authentic about your emotional experience and where you're at, without making other people responsible, blaming them for your experience or projecting your pain onto them. Okay, and I think that's the difference. There's a difference between authenticity and projection. So make sure you understand the distinction between the two, because authenticity is what's going to create the connection and the relationships that you've been craving, that you've probably not been able to find because you keep dating emotionally unavailable partners because you yourself have not really shown them who you are, you've not put yourself out there, so you've attracted emotionally unavailable people, and the key to attracting an emotionally available partner is really showing who you really are and being your authentic self with that person. Got it Okay.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:Now moving on Acceptance over approval. Right, as a people pleaser, approval was my North Star for the longest time. Now I've shifted that to say acceptance. I'll give you an example. I was surrounded by a group of friends where everything was about their approval approval on what I did, how I did it, how much I made, how what I wore. Every time we went out for brunch on a fucking Sunday, if I had to cancel because I had to take care of my parents, and how they responded to that.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:I constantly felt like I was being. You know, I was constantly held to a standard that not only I couldn't live up to or didn't want to live up to but they themselves couldn't live up to, like I constantly felt like there was expectations and what's it called standards being put onto me that weren't aligned for me, that didn't feel right for me, that I felt like I couldn't be myself. I felt like I had to be a different version of myself to in order to be included and to feel included in those relationships, and so I ditched them. You know, it took, it took a while and it took some time to to walk away from them, and some were harder to walk away than others. Some some were super fucking easy. I will tell you that right now, a couple of them were really hard and it took me a long time and it was a lot of conversations and it was a lot of pain walking away from them.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:But ultimately I had to walk away from them because I felt like I was constantly what's it called seeking their approval or trying to get their approval and not getting it. Sometimes I got it, but sometimes I felt like you know that approval was always being withheld, because you know I didn't do this right. Those priorities weren't aligned with what their priorities were. You know the fact that you know we, our interests, were going in separate directions and I was who I was and I liked the things that I liked and nothing had really changed about me. But now, suddenly, the things that always made me me were not what they enjoyed anymore. I guess they they're. They had evolved, evolved, you know. An example would be I'm trying to think of an example that I could share with you guys.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:But you know, I was always a silly one in the group and I've always been the silly person in my friend group, like since I was younger and that you know, yes, I'm older and, yes, I'm wiser, but I'm still pretty silly and I like silly things. And you know I'm very passionate about certain things, like I'm very passionate about dance, I love to laugh, I love comedy, I love to be entertained. I love to feel like I, you know, when I if I'm, if I'm watching a movie, I feel like, you know, I just want to be entertained and laugh and I want to escape life Like I don't want to watch. I don't like to watch heavy movies or heavy dramas, or, you know, I do a lot of thinking and reflecting when I'm doing my work. So you know, when I'm looking to movie for entertainment, I'm just looking to like have a good lighthearted laugh or watch an action flick or just be entertained.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:You know, and I think, as my friends were getting older, their interests were changing and that's fine, I didn't have an issue with that. You know they were. You know they were seeking a different experience from their entertainment and that was fine, that was totally okay for me. But now it was becoming a judgment that I wasn't seeking those things, that I was. I guess I don't know if I was somehow being perceived as being immature, you know, lacking in culture or whatever. You know, there were things that I was passionate about, that they weren't passionate about and I was cool with that. And there were things that they were passionate about that I totally was not passionate about and I was cool with that. But somehow this started to become an issue, and this is just one example, like there's so things that started to show up for us.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:One of them would always harp on me for getting dressed up every time we went out for brunch I'm sorry, it's girl time, I don't go out much, I work from home, I take care of my family, I'm a caregiver for my parents, so for me, when I go out with the girls for brunch. That is my time to put on a cute outfit, y'all, and like do my nails and do my hair and feel really good. Well, one of them was always like oh, why don't you don't dress up tomorrow, we're going out, just come casual. You're not. I don't want you dressing up and I'm like, but what? Why is it to you? You know how I want to dress, like I'm going out and I want to be myself and I want to express myself and one of the ways I love to express myself is through what I wear. You know, I was a fashion student for crying out loud.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:You know who see you and who value you and who don't try to change you. You know, or who don't try to stifle you in any way or give you direction on who to be and how to show up and what to look like and what to say and how to sound and what to be interested in and what not to be interested in and where to invest your time or your money or where not to invest your time. Those are your decisions and anybody. If you're an adult like if you're a child listening to this, then for fuck's sakes, then yes, the adults in the room do have a say, but if you're an adult listening to this podcast which I don't think there's a lot of children that are listening I hope there's no kids listening to my podcast. There's no kids listening to my podcast. Oh my God, if you're an adult listening to this podcast, you are responsible for your decisions. No one else gets to take that from you. You get to decide who you are and how you show up. Yes, we all have work to do. Yes, we all have shit to clean up. However, you get to decide who you get to be in this life. No one else makes that decision for you. So always, always, always, look for acceptance and not work for someone's approval. Okay, that is when you know that you're in a healthy relationship, okay.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:The third one is compromise over sacrifice. Every relationship has a certain degree of compromise. Okay, it doesn't matter if it's a friendship, if it's a coworking relationship um, um, boss, worker, whatever romantic relationship, family every relationship has compromise, okay. And that is what? Because you know, ultimately, you know everyone has their wants, everyone has their needs, everyone has their desire. Everyone has their needs, everyone has their desires. Sometimes those are aligned, sometimes they're not, and sometimes we can do our own thing and sometimes we come together and we both want the same thing and sometimes needs or desires or wants clash and one person getting their way means what the other person is somehow not going to be getting theirs, or one way or the other. You know what I mean. So that's where conversations need to happen, that's where some compromise needs to happen and that's where we need to look at okay, how can we make sure that both our wants, needs and desires are reflected in this decision that we're about to make? Right, and maybe you know sometimes you know you do have to. You know take one for the team and you know make a compromise that will benefit the other person, but sometimes that also can. That needs to be made in your favor as well. Relationships are always a two-way street. Sacrifice is different.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:Sacrifice is you constantly putting your needs, your wants, your desires on the back burner and prioritizing everyone else's, and that never leads to anything good. That will always, always, always guarantee you, lead to toxicity and people who don't truly value you or see you worth. Because you don't value you and see your worth. Because if you did value yourself and see your worth, you would value what you want and what you need and what you desire in this life, and you would give it a seat at the fucking table. Want and what you need and what you desire in this life, and you would give it a seat at the fucking table. So your job is to ask yourself what is it about me that I don't value or I don't deem as being worthy enough to have his wants and it's his, her wants, her needs, her desires met? You know why are my wants and needs and desires not as important as everyone else's? Because they are. You know, and you have to really examine why this pattern of self-sacrifice if that's your pattern, where it's coming from and how you can start to move away from that unhealthy sacrificial lamb kind of pattern and into a healthy relationship compromise.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:And some relationships won't like this because they're used to you sacrificing. And that's not because they're bad. Some might be, some of them. This is just who you've been your entire life and that's how they know you. And now you're like this different person and they don't know how to take it To them.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:You know a lot of times when we're in toxic dynamics, you know, like I said, they always go two ways. You know there's always our side of the street and there's always the other person's side of the street. And sometimes, you know, sacrifice, when we sacrifice, it becomes an expression of love, like when I used to sacrifice a lot. It was out of love. And so when I didn't sacrifice, people who got used to me sacrificing as a way of showing love were like, oh my God, does she not love me anymore? You know, but it wasn't that, it was just. That's what I taught, that's how I taught people to treat me. So I had to unteach them that I would treat them that way, right, which is not always the easiest work.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:But again, you're going for quality, not quantity, okay, and when you do this, some relationships will not make it, but the ones who do are the ones you want to keep with you. Um, okay, here's the last one, okay, and this is probably. It kind of lines up with the first one, but it's different, and I'll explain how. It's honesty over niceness, okay. This means, yes, it's about, you know, being your authentic self. Right, honesty is about being authentic and being truthful and being in integrity and what you with what, what you believe in, what you say, you know, lining up. But it's, there's a difference between you know, when I say you know, the first one we talked about, with authenticity over positivity. This is being, this is in interactions, right, this is specifically in interactions. I want you to practice being honest versus being nice. Okay, being nice to for the sake of being seen as being a nice person, a good person, a good girl, is actually quite toxic and destructive to your relationships. You would better serve yourself to be honest in your relationships and in integrity in your relationships than to be nice.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:And I can remember a situation way back. This was like before I started my journey and you know I was with a group of friends who no longer take space in my life, a bunch of couples. And I can remember, you know, saying to one of them saying you know, you know, I always, I always try to do the nice thing. I want people to think that I'm nice, you know, and so I always, I always go the extra mile to you know, and I'm like, no, I'm just kind of myself, you know, I kind of just I. You know, I'm honest, I try to be very on the level about who I am and I screw it up sometimes and I'm not always as authentic as I'd like to be.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:But I do like to try to be as real as possible and give people a chance to decide, you know, whether or not they like me as a person or not, and then that's you know. Whatever they decide, you know I try to just be okay with that. Right, and that was the best I could do at the time. And it wasn't so many cars around me right now they're roaring all over the place, but you know it wasn't perfect. I was. You know I screwed it up way more than I got it right. But you know that was kind of what I was trying to live by is I'd rather be honest and truthful than play a part so that I could make people think that I'm nice.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:And so this person gets into an argument with me and they're like so you don't, you don't care what people think of you and you don't, you don't try to, to, to, to be a good person so that they like you and think that you're nice, and it's like well, you know you're asking me two different things right now. You're asking me if I'm a good person. Are you asking me if I'm a good person, or are you asking me if I try to trick people into thinking I'm a good person. I think I'm a good person and I always try to bring my best foot forward, but I always you know, I'm always like honest about who I am and what I want, and you know, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna be fake just so that people think I'm nice. Like that to me is just that's just wrong. Like why would you be fake? You know that doesn't sit well with me. That means it feels like I'm tricking people into thinking that I'm nice, versus them actually deciding for themselves whether or not they think I'm nice.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:And this triggered the crap out of this person and I, when I tell you, this had a ripple effect in the group for like I don't know, this went on for weeks. I was like, wow, I can't believe. Like from that tiny conversation, like all this like ripple effect that has gone on and all this drama that has transpired as a result of what I said, all because I said, listen, I would just rather be honest and not play games with people or not try to manipulate people into liking me, and to just being honest about who I am and what I think and what I feel and letting them decide for themselves and somehow this was a bad thing. So, you know, although many people will tell you to do the nice thing, to say the nice thing, to be the bigger person, which oftentimes I think you know, we do get the opportunity to be the bigger person and I think you know, when it feels aligned, we can take it, when it feels in integrity, we can take it. But, again, it needs to feel aligned and it needs to feel like we're into integrity.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:If it feels like we're lying, then something's wrong. You know, if it feels like we're lying, or if it feels like what we're saying and what we're actually believing or feeling are two different things, then we need to look at that and we need to ask ourselves okay, well, you know, is that belief or feeling or thinking? Is that in alignment with my highest truth? Am I dealing with a story, maybe, that I need to transform, a belief about myself that needs to change, or about this relationship that needs to transform? Like, am I coming up against a saboteur? Am I coming up against some conditioning that maybe I need to work through, or is this really an honest perspective or thought or feeling or way of showing up in the world that I have, that I'm now pretending is not the case, and I'm trying to think of an example in my head where we would try to be nice versus being honest. You know, and I think you know, when it comes.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:I mean, there's certain situations I think many of us can't be honest at work sometimes. You know we can't tell our boss they're a dick. You know we can't do that. We don't have the right to tell anybody that we think they're a dick really. But you know we can choose to see the whole person and treat them with respect and, you know, not go out of our way to be fake nice to them just to make them think that we like them. You know what I mean. We can still be respectful and we can be mindful and we can still treat that person with kindness and integrity without making false statements of how we feel about them or making all these grandiose gestures to make them think that we like them, because we're not only trying to convince them, we're trying to convince ourselves, because we're afraid that they see that we don't like them. So now we have to do all these grandiose gestures to make them feel like we appreciate them when really deep down we just think they're a dick. You know what I mean. I think that that gets you know.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:We need to really just check in with ourselves and really ask ourselves am I being honest? Am I being fake? Am I putting on a show because I want people to think a certain thing or a certain way about me? And how would I be acting if I didn't care what people think? That's always the most powerful question I think any of us can ask ourselves when it comes to people pleasing, you know, is what would I say here? How would I show up? What would I do if I didn't give a shit what people thought about me? You know, and maybe that's not always the thing that we do, but let that be part of the conversation, right, or at least somehow reflected in the actions that you take and how you show up with your interactions with people, because I think, ultimately, when we're interacting with people from a place of integrity and truth, where we can respect ourselves but also have respect for other people, right, I think that's when we start to attract the really healthy, aligned relationships right, and probably deter the toxic ones that constantly want you to feed their ego and just make them feel like you know, constantly having the ego stroked or having the, you know you doing all the external validation because that's what your niceness does for them. You know there's so many ways to play this, but I think you get what I'm trying to say.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:Right, be honest over nice as often as you can. Do it respectfully, do it in integrity, do it with kindness, but just be honest. Don't fake anything. Don't be fake nice. Don't go out of your way to prove to someone that you're a nice, good person. If you don't want to have them over to break bread with that's always my guiding light they don't want to have you at my house to break bread with. Are you that person that I want to sit down and have a really good meal with, or crack open a bottle of wine with, and if so, I'm going to show that to you. Naturally, I'm not going to fake anything.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:And again, to the flip side of that, if there's something that you really don't like, I think you can still be very respectful and very kind without any grandiose displays of niceness, trying to prove to yourself or to them that you like them when you really don't. Okay, anyway, those are my, those are my two sensible four of you know ways that I've I've kind of you know really started to trim the weeds in a lot of my relationships and really call in healthier relationships. These four, these four things specifically, have changed the quality of the relationships that I've been calling in and how comfortable I actually feel around them. Right, and again, quality over quantity always Okay. So, um, let me know which one of these resonates in the comments or wherever you're seeing this, or DM me at the fem coach Coach or at the Femme Cast sorry on Instagram. And don't forget, if you're listening to this on Apple iTunes or Spotify or wherever you're listening to this, please don't forget to leave a positive rating and review. Until next time, you guys, massive love.
