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Virago 24/7
Virago 24/7 is a podcast for women who are done shrinking.
I’m your host, Lyanette Talley—mother, wife, truth-teller, and warrior in progress.
Here is where we unlearn silence, honor our roots, and reclaim our voices.
We talk real life—identity, marriage, motherhood, leadership, and healing—with boldness and truth.
If you’ve ever been told you’re too loud, too much, or too ambitious...
You’re exactly where you need to be.
This is everyday growth. Everyday healing. For everyday warriors.
We’re not shrinking. We’re taking up space.
Virago 24/7
Return To Yourself
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
You can spend a lifetime trying to become “better,” only to realize the life you want starts when you stop abandoning yourself.
I’m joined by psychotherapist, Diamond Approach teacher, and memoirist Rosanne Annoni, author of "Unfolding the Heart", for a conversation about what happens when you finally get quiet enough to hear the truth you’ve been editing for years.
Rosanne takes us back to a moment from childhood that should have been met with care, but instead shattered her confidence in her own inner voice. From there, we trace how that loss of trust can turn into people-pleasing, self-censorship, and looking to others for permission. She breaks down transactional analysis in a way that makes your relationships instantly clearer, including the Drama Triangle and why rescuing, victimhood, and persecution keep repeating until we learn to pause.
We also dig into the Diamond Approach and how inquiry, meditation, and modern psychology can help us separate personality conditioning from our essential qualities like love, strength, compassion, and peace. Then we get personal about boundaries with a difficult parent, motherhood guilt, making amends, and grief that doesn’t disappear but can transform as love continues.
If you’re on a healing journey, craving deeper spiritual growth, or learning to take up space as a woman, this one gives you language and tools you can actually use. Subscribe to Virago 24/7, share this with a friend who needs it, and leave a review so more women can find these conversations.
Rosanne Annoni: https://rosanneannoni.com/
Go to my website http://www.virago247.net for all things Virago 24/7
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Everyday growth, everyday healing with everyday warriors!
Music by Deli Rowe: "Space to Move"
Logo by Kaylin Talley
Introduction And The Call Within
Speaker 2What if the life you're longing for isn't found by becoming someone new, but by finally becoming who you were always meant to be? So much of our lives are spent adapting. We learn how to be strong, how to be needed, how to keep going. We learn how to silence the parts of ourselves that feel inconvenient, painful, or too much. But what happens when we stop running from ourselves? What happens when we get quiet enough to listen to what our heart has been trying to tell us? Today I am joined by someone who has spent her life exploring those very questions. Rosanne Annoni is a psychotherapist, a teacher of the diamond approach, and the author of a memoir, Unfolding the Heart. Her work is an invitation to go deeper, to move beyond the identities, defenses, and stories we've built around ourselves and reconnect with something more essential, more honest, and more alive. Because healing isn't about being perfect, it's about becoming more fully ourselves. And sometimes the bravest thing we can do is stop shrinking, stop performing, and start listening to the truth within us. Let's welcome Roseanne Annoni. Hi, I am your host, Lyanette Talley, and you are listening to Virago 24/7. Virago is Latin for female warrior, and 24/7 is for all day, every day. Virago 24/7 is a weekly podcast that brings diverse women together to talk about life and our experiences in this world. We share our views on self-love, mental health, marriage, children, friendships, and really anything that needs to be talked about. Here you will find everyday growth, everyday healing with everyday warriors. So today we have Rosanne. You were a very successful psychotherapist for 35 years. And you just wrote a book called Unfolding the Heart, which I had the privilege to read. And I finished it last night, the last few pages. And for the last few pages, my heart, like my hand was on my heart, just oh man. And I'm like, okay, don't cry tomorrow when you're talking to her. So if I shed a few tears, it's a little bit more. So touch. I'm so touched. Thank you. Yeah, I was touched too. So if it's tears, it's because I I felt I felt your words. So let's start with your journey from when you were a young girl. Um, because that's how your book starts, and that's part of, you know, the it's uh to me, it seems like it's the catalyst of what you become in the future.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 2So you were age 10 and you had this epiphany. And so let's talk about
Childhood Vision And A Shattered Trust
Speaker 2that and how you um confided in your mom about it and her reaction. Can we talk about that?
SpeakerWe can. Okay. Yes. I mean, I was a very I was very religious and I was raised in a religious Catholic family. Um, and you know, we I went to Catholic school and we would go to church every Sunday, and um, and I was sitting in a classroom in my fifth grade classroom, and uh all of a sudden, this I was looking, there was a crucifix in every classroom up above the chalkboard, right? And I'm just looking at it, and this moment, it was like it really looked like Jesus started moving on the cross and talking to me, which was I'd never had an experience like that. And I didn't afterwards, that was like this one very unusual moment. Um, and what it felt like, even though there were no words, was that I was being called to serve him. And at the time, as a Catholic girl, the only thing I could imagine was becoming a nun, because that's how it was. If you were a girl, you could become a nun. If you were a boy, you could become a priest. So I thought, oh, I'm being called to serve God and to become a nun. And I was so excited about it, and I ran home and I told my mom, thinking she would be all excited about it. And she smacked me across the face and said, Don't you ever say that again. Do you understand? I mean, she was really angry. I did not understand why she was angry, and it wasn't the kind of, we didn't have that kind of relationship where I would go, why are you so mad at me? You know, nothing like that. You didn't ask. Um, you know, it was 1956, it was a different time. And um I never brought it up again to her. It we we never spoke about it again until I was, oh, well, I guess I was in my early 70s. I had been ordained already as a teacher of the diamond approach, and she brought it up at one point. She said, I'm I'm sorry I stopped you from becoming a nun. That's the only conversation we ever had about it. But it was very formative for me because uh, you know, it was like when you have something that uh poignant happen to you as a little girl, um, and then to not have any support for it, you know, just like I didn't know what to do with that. And so I think a lot of the the young, my young adult years were trying to find myself get back on track to what was a true calling. It was a true calling to serve, to serve others.
Speaker 2Um and so do you think that altered? Um, you know, we talk a lot about like intuition and listening to our gut. Did that change? Like, were you insecure? Like, maybe that's not my inner voice, maybe that's not what I'm meant to do. That that would be a little confusing, I would think.
SpeakerA lot confusing, actually, Lynette. Yes, I think I lost confidence in myself. And I didn't trust myself. I didn't trust my instincts anymore. And I I don't know if that was the moment where I turned away from myself, but it was certainly a pivotal moment where I would look to others for, well, what am I supposed to do? And what's right and what's wrong? And I didn't know or I didn't trust, as you know, you're saying, it's like I didn't have the confidence to trust my own intuition or to trust what I was feeling.
From Social Work To Transactional Analysis
Speaker 2So then you decide, you know, that helping others is, you know, you there's other avenues. So you become a psychotherapist. And is that why you got into that profession? It's like, okay, I'm not gonna be a nun, but I can help others in this and on this side of it.
Speaker 1You know, it was sort of like um, again, you have to put yourself in the time.
SpeakerIt's a different time for you. Um, but for me, back then, the choices for a girl, or at least in my where I grew up in my culture, you could be a wife and mother, you could be a nurse or a teacher or a nun until you got married. You know, you could be a uh a nurse, a teacher, something like that. And I realized, oh, there was a long time where I thought I was going to be a nurse, and then I realized I couldn't stand the sight of blood. And like, no, I don't think I can do that. And and going back to your point about confidence, I didn't have the confidence I could stand in front of a class and teach kids. And it wasn't until um the in our senior year in high school we had these career, this career day, you know, and a social worker came in and talked about social work. And I went, oh, I could do that. So that's what I went to, that's what was my major in college. And then I went on to graduate school to get a master's in social work. But really, it was when I was in grad school that I was introduced to transactional analysis. And that's when I went, oh, I want to do that. I want to study that. Um, that's where I really felt like I found my groove and I thought, oh, now this is my purpose. I'm this is how I will serve. Okay. I will serve as a therapist.
Speaker 2So, what is transactional analysis? Because you write that in the book, and and I didn't look it up. I normally like Google stuff, and I'm like, no, I'll just wait for her to explain it.
SpeakerOh, that's great. Um, there back again, back in the 60s, there was a humanistic psychology movement where they were, so Freud was the, you know, kind of the master of psychotherapy. And then all these young, bright, upstart psychiatrists really started this other movement. They called it the humanistic psych psychology humanistic psychology movement, something like that. Um, and so Fritz Pearls, Eric Byrne, um, Alexander Loewen, they all they they started experimenting with different ways to help people. And Eric Byrne was a rebel, and he wrote a book called Games People Play, and it became a huge success because what he did was he said, you don't have to sit on a couch for 20 years and talk to somebody that's not even looking at you. The way that people really heal and get better is through relationship, through interaction. So he turned the tables on that, you know, lying on the couch with your eyes closed and you know, whatever, contemplating your navel. And so the the the whole approach was interactive, relational, and he he and he broke it down. He was very clever, so he had different ways of breaking down uh the personality so that it was accessible. So he talked about, you know, that we have three parts of ourselves: the parent, the adult, and the child. And when we're in relationship to another, we're either coming from our parent, um, our adult or our child. And so if you're in a relationship with somebody and you're feeling you're in your child and you project onto them that they're the parent, you're gonna act the way you did as a kid. And so all your transactions are gonna follow. It's like, you know, he was looking at the personality as all these patterns that we learn, and then we we just stay in that groove until something wakes us up and and breaks us out of it. And it was so uh accessible and so clever, I thought. And, you know, there were different, there's a lot more I could share with you about transactional analysis.
Speaker 5Go on, go on.
SpeakerYeah, it was fascinating. And the thing that, and I do write about this in the book too. Um, there was one of his main like teachers was his name was Steve Cartman, and he created something called the drama triangle. And he he was basically describing what keeps us in a drama rather than, you know, a dialogue where you say something, I listen, and then I respond, and you listen, you know, that kind of a dialogue. He's like, what keeps the old dramas going, the ones that you learned as a child? And so he had these these three roles that you get into. One is the rescuer, I'll help you, one is the victim, poor me, and one is the persecutor. It's all your fault. So you and but and he said, you know, we each have our favorite role that we play, but we know all the roles on the triangle because we move around it. So it might be something like, you know, your friend is complaining about something, and she seems to be in victim, like she just complaining, complaining, complaining. I you know, oh, he did this to me, he did that to me. And so you go, Well, why don't you leave him? You're gonna give her some advice, right? And she turns on you and goes, You don't understand, and starts persecuting you for trying to help her, right? Yeah, and then you end up in victim because now you're being persecuted. But if you get impatient enough with her persecution, you might turn around and go, Well, you're stupid for staying with this. We've been talking about this for years, and you know, yeah. Do you see? So when when I learned that, uh, that was a real uh that was an enlightening experience for me to see that I I favored the rescuer and the victim. I didn't see myself as a persecutor, but I I did that too. There's something called he would talk about persecuting from victim. What's the difference in particular? It's got a particular flavor of blaming the other person. Yeah. So there's
The Drama Triangle And A Mindful Pause
Speakerit was um, I used it for years. I did couples uh therapy, I did group therapy, I did individual therapy, and I found it of all the different types of therapies that I studied, I found that one the most effective. And it still lives in me. It's still something that I use. Like I'll catch myself.
Speaker 2How do we get out of the triangle? Like we obviously, when you go to therapy or you learn these things, you're trying to get out of that pattern. How do we get out of that pattern?
SpeakerThat's a great question. Um, you know, as a therapist, so so what we would teach, what I would teach my clients is, you know, let is first just be aware. Be aware that this is where you're coming from. And if you keep trying to rescue people and the and people don't want your help unless they've asked for it, you know, it's like you're giving advice, nobody wants it. Um, so uh you can you can intervene by going, what if you stopped giving advice? What if instead of looking at other people to figure out what their problems are, you look at yourself and see, what can I do to help myself? And that's that's a way of instead of looking out, you start to look in. Um, so that's one way of working with it. Um, when I started studying meditation and realizing that there was a way that I could train my mind to not go along with every single thought that came up in my head, like, I need to help that person. It's like, wait a minute, nobody asked for your help. So you know what happens when you give unsolicited advice, it's usually rejected. So, you know, do I wouldn't have to go along with that thought. I learned how to like stop or pause, say, take a breath. So when I started using meditation in conjunction with the therapy, that's when I really learned to step outside of the roles uh that were prescribed for me, the ones that I learned as a little kid. And so it's like um it might be as simple as take a breath. How about if you just take a breath and before you act? Or how about if you take a moment and and see if is this a familiar pattern? Are you about to engage in something familiar? So it's it's like I guess it's really pausing, pausing enough to bring awareness to what your habitual patterns are, where you would go if you didn't stop and think about it. Right? Does that make sense to you?
Speaker 2Oh, definitely. Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SpeakerAnd we all have those patterns. I mean, they're they're ingrained.
Speaker 2If we're being honest with ourselves, yeah, we all do. Yeah.
SpeakerWe all do. That's right.
Speaker 2I was cute, I was curious with being um a therapist for so many years, is there like a common theme that we as humans are like? Um, obviously we come from different backgrounds, but is there like a common um something that we're seeking or needing in this life in this world? Is do we have something in common or we're just all very different and just crazy in our own ways?
SpeakerWell, both. How's that? Because I think we are each unique and we're all crazy in our own ways. Um, but I also think, you know, when and you probably you probably know this. It's like really, really, we just want to be loved and accepted, right? That's what we want, even though we go about it in these crazy ways sometimes. Um I think that's that's the commonality is we just want to be loved, we want to be accepted for who we are in our uniqueness, and you know, we want to get along. People don't want conflict, they don't want unhappiness, they don't want to feel lonely, they don't want to feel rejected. But these patterns, if we don't stop and think about how we're participating in creating them over and over again, uh, we end up feeling like isolated and we're the only one. And really, if anybody, if you ask anybody, and you do this, this is your work, you find out people's stories. And what do you find when you when you get down to the nub of it? What what do the stories have in common?
Speaker 2Yeah, um, to belong, to be loved, to feel connected spiritually to something, whether we believe in something or not. I feel like as humans, we're seeking something bigger than us.
SpeakerI agree. That's right. We're seeking it and we don't always know where to look or how to find it. Um yeah, but I think it if you, you know, that's that's the commonality. We're really not different. Yeah. In, you know, in Buddhism, they talk about one of the things we talk about, or one of the ways we describe human consciousness, is that we're all we're all swimming in this ocean of consciousness. And there are waves in the ocean that look like individual parts of the ocean, but those waves come back down and settle in, and it's all the same ocean. And I think that's true for humanity. We are a uh an ocean of humanity with these differences, but the commonality is this desire to um sense and know something that's bigger than when I you know say bigger than myself, I mean something beyond my conditioning, my personality, my little family that I grew up in, you know, or my church that I grew up in, or my community. It's like what to to to realize that when you start moving around and you meet different kinds of people and different cultures, you can find that commonality, that desire to belong. I liked what you said about belonging. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2Let's
Diamond Approach And Essential Qualities
Speaker 2talk about the diamond approach, because I'm I want to know all of it because it you mentioned that a lot. And and it sounds like being ordained as a teacher is a very big deal. So let's talk about how you discovered um the diamond approach and why it has worked for you and why you got so involved in it.
SpeakerUm well, I discovered it through Jack Cornfield, who was my Vipassana teacher. And I had been, you know, by the, I guess at that point, maybe I'd been a therapist for 20 some years, because to become a teacher, it takes a minimum of seven years. So somewhere along the way, I discovered it. I was a student, and then I was invited to study to become a teacher. So I I was probably practicing psychotherapy for about 25 years. And I was beginning to, and I was meditating and I was beginning to sense that commonality. Like with my uh clients, I would see that even though they were talking about things like, you know, I want to get along better with my partner, or I wish I had more friends, or I wish I could find more meaning in my life, or whatever it was that they were focusing on, fundamentally what they were asking for is how do I connect to something that's deeper than my usual way of perceiving myself and the world? Is there a connection? Is there some way I can go deeper within myself? And uh and and so I was seeing that, but I wasn't bringing that into the psychotherapy. I was still focusing on, you know, the helping, helping them. And and then at some point, I just remember with this one client in particular, she was asking questions that made me realize she she was ready to hear that there's more to you than your personality. And what does that mean? I mean, that we think we are our personality. That's who we take ourselves to be. Um, but there's something more, there's something essential. And that's what I, you know, to begin to describe some of these concepts. They're concepts, they're not so easy to describe, but you could say that's where what connects us to each other is that we all have what in the diamond approach we call essential qualities. So we all have strength, we all have love, we all have compassion. Um more accurately, we are love, we are strength, we are power, we are our peace, we are, you know, just go on and on about all the various uh qualities that exist in nature, and they are that is us. And so I was beginning to get a glimpse of that, but I but I didn't know how to connect it with psychotherapy. Was like, how do I, is there a way to bring those two together? And so I asked Jack that, and he told me about Hamid Ali, who was the founder of the Diamond Approach. And what what made it resonate for me so much is that it's it is a spiritual path, and we use meditation and inquiry. Inquiry meaning you keep asking what's the truth to get to the real nub of it, not just your first thought, but well, let's keep going. Um, so we use uh ancient uh Buddhist practices and um other other religions too. It's like you bring in all these practices, but we also use modern psychology to begin to understand and then penetrate the personality, meaning you start to take apart who you take yourself to be and you question is that actually authentically me? Or is that who I thought I was? Because that's what my mom told me I was. Like my mom, one of the things I loved when I was reading about your your podcast is you know, were you told you were too loud? Like there's all these, like, were you the were you? And I was like, yes, yes, yes, yes. You know, my mom was always telling me to keep quiet. I can hear you above everybody else. You're so loud. And I grew up thinking I was too much. And so that that really affected how I was, how I moved in the world. So even though I was successful, I was still always holding myself back from being too much for the other because I thought I was too much. So that's that's an example. So that so we we use various exercises and inquiries to start penetrating those beliefs and freeing ourselves of those beliefs, so that what we come to believe ultimately is our ultimate nature. That okay, we are, you could call it, you know, depending on your beliefs, you could say I'm a child of God. You could say I am uh a star in the cosmos. I am, you know, whatever, whatever it is, I am a part of this universe that is so much larger than anything I could have imagined when I was trying to keep myself small, you know, that uh that that you can expand into your full self, whatever that is. And for some people, it's not being louder or doing more, it's actually learning how to quiet and um you know be more thoughtful. Yeah. So yeah. Wow.
Speaker 2Yeah, it does. I can relate to everything you're saying about the loudness and just being too much. And yeah, that that hits home. That hits home. So then you learn to kind of you know quiet down a little bit. Everyone always says they hear my voice out of it. If there's like 20 people, they hear my voice, and I'm like, I don't know what else to be.
Speaker 3This is how God made me. I always say it's because I'm Puerto Rican.
Speaker 2Maybe it's because I'm Puerto Rican and this is how we talk, or maybe because my voice is a little deeper for a woman.
Speaker 3So I make up all these excuses as to why my voice carries above the nice name. Exactly. I'm like, I don't know what to tell you.
Speaker 2Um a lot of the questions I've been asking myself in because I feel like I'm on this healing journey and seeking, seeking, lots of seeking. And um, how do I know, or you know, people listening when I need to heal part of myself versus accepting this part of myself? Is there a difference between that? Because I'm always wondering, is this something I need to fix or is this something I need to accept? It's just the way I tick, if that makes sense.
SpeakerIt does make sense. Um I'm just thinking about in a way, it's both. In a way, it's like one of the one of the say main tenants of the diamond approach is to be where you are. So you start there, you start where you are, and you say, Okay, this is where I am. Uh, let's say I I'm usually patient, but boy, when's when I get triggered, I speak before I think. And so, you know, and then sometimes I hurt people. So you start there, you just start by telling the truth about okay, this is how this is how it is, and then that's where the inquiry is. Is this inherently who I am? Is this how I'm made? Or is this something that I learned? And it's a pattern that I could I could uh free myself of. So I I think I I do believe that intuitively we know when we're acting in a way that actually isn't in our best interest or in the best interest of others, the ones we love. We we kind of intuitively know it, but if we start by rejecting that and going, oh, why do I do this? Oh, this, you know, uh, I'm a bad person for losing my temper when I lose my temper or whatever it is, you it that's it's like um, you know, saying to a little kid, uh I'm gonna punish you for that. Well, okay, you punish the kid for doing that, but does that help the child learn anything about how to be different? No. So it's like you you start by accepting where you are, this is how it is, and then then bringing that that like curiosity is this the whole truth? Is there more here? Is there, you know, is this is this really how I feel deep in my heart? Or is this how I'm acting because I feel hurt?
unknownYeah, yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2Makes sense. Yeah, it does. It does. Yeah. Um let's let's touch on some
Boundaries Motherhood And Making Peace
Speaker 2things from your book. So it's a memoir, Unfolding the Heart. Um, you explore grief, you talk about being a mother, you talk about loss, healing, and searching. A lot of it is searching for that inner truth. And as a daughter, you talk a lot about your mom and the challenges that you had connecting with her. And I know most people have that one person in their lives that is just like, I don't know how to like get through to you. How did you learn to meet her where she was and accept who she was? Or did you ever get to that point?
SpeakerI did get to that point, but not for many years.
unknownOkay.
SpeakerUm, I would say it was a process, and up until hmm, I was just contemplating this this morning. I was wondering, when was it that I first stood up to my mother? Because she was a bully, basically. And when when did I first stand up to her? And I think I was in my late 30s. And it was when, and it was going back to that drama triangle triangle, it was when I realized I am stuck in victim. And as long as I'm stuck in victim and I think she has all the power, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna ever, we're not ever gonna make a difference in our relationship because I'm always gonna be feeling like a victim and then arguing with her to accept me in a way that she simply couldn't. She just she couldn't. And so so the so for me, the first time was like stepping out of victim and standing up to her basically and saying, if you ever speak to me that way again, I'm out of your life. And I gave her a script. I said, you know, I know how you talk about your friends, and I know how you talk to your friends. So you talk to me like you talk to your friends, and then behind their back, you go say whatever you want, but don't say it to me. And she got it. It was it, you know, it took her a little time, but she she actually learned to not just say the first thing that was coming out, coming into her brain, which would always be a criticism, you know. It's like she learned to like bite her tongue around me. That gave us some space to be together. Um, but it was really, I think for me, it was it was taking back my own power and and realizing I didn't have to put up with this. Um, nor did I have to change her. Yeah, I didn't live with her anymore. Sh I was a grown up. I'd already been married and divorced twice. I had a kid, you know. It's like this is my life now. There was something about taking back my own power, taking back my own life. And then from that place, that's where I started to mature. So somebody asked me once, well, you know, what's what's what's your memoir about? I said it's a it's a coming of age, but in middle age.
Speaker 3It's like yeah, yeah, actually, that's a good explanation of it. Yeah.
SpeakerYeah, it was like kind of mid-life. I came of age, I started to mature, but it started when I took back that power and realized I had the capacity to make choices, and and then each time I would do that, it gave us more space between us, and it was a very gradual thing. And then, of course, you know, being a mother uh and watching or feeling like I hadn't failed my son, I wasn't the mother I wanted to be. All I knew was that I didn't want to be like my mother. Yeah, that's all I knew is like I don't I'm not gonna hit him, I'm not gonna criticize him, but I had no roadmap. Well, well, how do you how do you teach a child, you know, how to behave or how to be, you know, how to share. How do you teach a child these things if you're not gonna use you know the rod? And um so I I I mean, my son, he I God love him. We're we're really close now. Okay. Okay, good. We have come together.
Speaker 3And that makes my heart happy to hear.
SpeakerOh, yeah. And he is, he's a happy, he's a happy 51-year-old young man. He's very happy. And you know, a couple times I would say to him, he's not a talk, he's not, he don't want to talk about feelings much, but I would say, I'm so sorry, Greg. I I really am sorry for you know some of the ways that I failed you and go, oh mom, you were fine. So he didn't track me the way I tracked me. Um, and but in that, in in seeing, in feeling, you know, my own sorrow for what I I did the best I could, but it wasn't it wasn't up to my best, uh, or it wasn't up to my standards. I wish I could have parented him differently. But seeing that, that definitely brought in some compassion for my mother. And then as I as I could stand back from her and see her more objectively, not just my mother, but look at this woman who everybody said, your mother's difficult.
Speaker 1You know, that was like the kindest thing they could say.
SpeakerYour mother's difficult. Like, oh, yeah, she is, she's a difficult woman. Uh, but I could stand back and I could watch her and see how she was tied up in knots. She was very high strung and anxious. She was always trying to be perfect for my father. My father was a perfectionist. She was too, but not quite like him. But she was always trying to please him. And then that made her. So if we, you know, left something on the floor, she'd smack us, you know, you know, it'd be but I I saw, I started to look back and I go, wow, she was uptight trying to please him. So I just got a deeper understanding of her, Lynette. It was like, okay, I see where she was coming from. And then I could just stand back and love her, you know, and feel appreciation. It was the, and then, as of course, as I got older and I saw her more objectively, I saw how much she loved us and how she did her very best to take care of us. She did a lot for us, you know. She get everything was made from scratch. She sewed all of our clothes because we didn't have much money, and she she was very status conscious. So it's like, we don't have to go buy clothes. I'll make you something. And she was an excellent seamstress. So we were always dressed really well. But, you know, it's like she sacrificed a lot for the family, and I appreciated that. And I really I came to love her dearly.
Speaker 2That's beautiful. And it's and I found that's a beautiful example also of like setting boundaries because people are afraid of setting these boundaries and letting people know this is how I would like to be treated. You can treat those people over there however you want, but here in this space, we're not doing that. So it's scary, but once you do it, you realize because I've had to do it too in my own life. You realize, okay, like it's more freeing for you. And like you said, you can observe and not be caught up in that drama anymore.
SpeakerUh-huh. So you had to set boundaries too. Oh yes. Oh, yeah.
Speaker 2Oh yes.
SpeakerOh, yeah. And you're do you think do you think that's what we have to do as women? I mean, I'm beginning to wonder, I think we do. I think we do.
Speaker 2And not a lot of us have the guts to do it. So we stay in that cycle. And I just was like, this is too exhausting. I can't do this anymore. Exactly I want something different for for myself.
SpeakerSo exactly. Yeah. And you take the risk of, okay, I might be alone or I might lose this person that I love. And that's not easy. And you know, and as I look back on my life, and writing the book was really, I think it was cathartic for me, because then I could see the places where I actually had courage that I didn't recognize. Cause it, you know, in the moment it felt like, oh, I've really messed up my life. But I see now, no, I I made these courageous moves in in the service of becoming more myself, you know, being free to be myself. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2Yeah. My other question, which you already touched on, was about your son and the relationship with him. And we have a lot of moms that listen, and we all have a lot of mom guilt and a lot of guilt, guilt, guilt. Um, what is something that, and you've kind of touched on it, that you had to forgive yourself for when raising. I did. Yeah. So you forgave yourself and you've asked for forgiveness from him for not doing the best that you could. Yeah.
SpeakerYes. And uh boy, did that take a long time. Okay, okay. I would say mom guilt. When I look back on my life, there's things that I've really, really screwed up badly. But the one thing about parenting, that was the hardest thing for me to forgive myself for. Because, you know, we we love our children, we want to do the best. When he was a baby, I wrote in his baby book, there was a saying that was very popular at the time. If you love someone, let them go. If they're yours, they'll come back, you know. And I was like, I am gonna let him go. I'm gonna let him be a free spirit. And he was, and and he is, and he's a very, he's a very interesting uh young man, and he thinks for himself, and he's always he's always had a lot of opinions, and he's very bright, and he does things his way. And recently, this is a little diversion. I'll give you a little bit of a little bit of a.
Speaker 3Oh, that's okay, that's all right.
SpeakerWell, when we were having this conversation, because he had some serious addictions, and that was the breaking point where we he he disowned us because we kept saying, My husband, I you know, you need to do something differently. So uh I think it was just this past year, and we were having this conversation, and I said, because he is he's sober now, and I said, What was did you not think you had a problem? He goes, Oh no, I knew I had a problem. I just didn't want anybody to tell me what to do. I didn't want you to tell me to stop. I didn't want anybody. I wanted to do it when I wanted to do it, and so he, you know, so that was a good example where I go, he's he's honest. And and and he, you know, so he I can see that now, and in many ways we were similar. I didn't like being told what to do, he didn't like being told what to do. And so even though I didn't want to be like my mother, I kind of was like my mother. I was telling him what to do, and he knew I was critical of him. So, you know, that mom guilt, it's it's the most painful, I think, of of all the different sorrows in my life. That was the most painful, and ultimately, I mean people. People would say to me, You did the best you could at the time. And that was true because I was immature until midlife. It was true, but it took a long time for me to accept that you know I really did do the best I could. And that's all, that's what we all do. We do the best we can with what we have. And you know, I did the best I could with the resources that I had. I was a single mom at a time when none of my friends had kids. I moved out to San Francisco. I was the only one with a kid. And all my other friends were, you know, they were doing this and doing that and having a lot of fun. And I'm trying to raise this kid, and I'm I was lost and I was overwhelmed by it because I was also, I had a full-time psychotherapy practice. So how did I I mean I think that's it. I think ultimately I finally believed what I was saying, which is I really did do the best I could, and I and I think that's true for every parent.
Speaker 2Yeah. I find I find that um as a daughter, and then also as a mother now, but I find that as a child, all I wanted is acknowledgement that I wasn't crazy, that this these things really happened, and that you were aware of these things. And and and regret, I don't like to use the word regret, but that if you could go back, you would do it differently. That's all. Yes. Acknowledgement, excuses, not well, this and this and this, or you know, or deflection, or becoming the victim, because I've been around that as well with a different parent. But um and and I've seen the difference where I'm like, okay, I see you as a person because you have acknowledged your shortcomings. And over here, I'm having a hard time because you're not accepting what happened. And then I feel like I'm crazy, like I'm making this up. So yeah. So with my oldest daughter, I have a 25-year-old. So I can, I was 21, I was young, and and did things that you like you said, very immaturely. So I've had to apologize to her. Like if I could go back with the knowledge and wisdom I have today, I totally would do that because her younger sister gets a different version of me. Um, and I'm like, I I see it, I see you, and I'm sorry. And I think that goes a long way. Yeah, yeah.
SpeakerThat is really beautiful. Yeah. I remember a friend telling me once, she said, it's too bad you didn't have another child because you're basing everything on how you were with this particular child who had this particular temperament.
Speaker 5Yes.
SpeakerAnd, you know, and that makes a difference, yes. It makes a big difference. And it was a particular time in my life, you know, it was a tough time in my life, right? So that's beautiful that you could say that to your daughter, and you can have that kind of relationship. You know, that the the real say, say, like the last um pebble dropped in the pool of forgiveness when my mother apologized for stopping me from becoming a nun. It was she she never she one time I was one of my therapists said, You should talk to your mother about her abuse and you know, and see if she, you know, understands how it affected you. And so I'm gonna work up my courage. We're sitting in a cafe in San Francisco. She's come to visit. We're sitting there, we're having our coffee, and I'm I'm gearing myself up to have this conversation. I go, Mom, you know, I want to talk to you about your abuse when I was a kid. She goes, I never abused you, of course. How dare you say that? You you hid me all the time and yelled at me all the time. No, I didn't. And she went on sterner coffee, and it was like we were going nowhere. So that that was an impediment to forgiving her because she wasn't acknowledging it. Exactly. And and it's like, I I had just become a teacher, you know, and we were sitting and talking, and she's telling me she she still prayed her novena. She was very she was a funny woman. So she was praying. She says, Oh, I have to, I have to say my prayers now, or I won't have time to make dinner. It's like, okay, well, who do you pray for? So she names all these friends and she names the people in the fam, our family, and and she says, and I go, Well, what do you pray for for them? Well, she tells me, you know, for your dad and my mom, and no, my dad, and my two sisters and our kids. And and she stops, and I go, Well, what about me? What do you pray for for me?
Speaker 4Oh, oh my goodness.
SpeakerAnd she she pursed her lips the way she would, and she put her head down, like, you know, like she wasn't gonna answer. And then she said, very quietly, I ask for forgiveness that I stopped you from becoming a nun. I was stunned. And she started her novena, and there was no more conversation. That was it. But for me, it was like that's all I needed, was just a little bit of acknowledgement.
Speaker 2And that was her way of apologizing, it sounds like that was her own special way of doing it.
SpeakerYeah, it was, and it worked.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, it worked. That's all we that's all we need.
SpeakerThat's right, all we need. That's right. That's beautiful.
Speaker 2Um you talk, let's see, you talk a lot about um
Grief As Love That Endures
Speaker 2grief and loss in the book. What has the healing process been? Because you know, a lot of us we're gonna come across loss and death, and how do we heal? Do we ever get over grief? Does it ever end? Or do you think it just what's what's your what are your thoughts on on that?
SpeakerUm well, it's six years out from the loss of my soulmate, really, my dearest friend. And um I think about him every day. I it's not and well, I live on the same street that he lived on, and I see his husband, you know, a lot. Walking my dog this morning, there was Mo, and we hug and kiss and say hello. And you know, so it's so he's kind of there anyway, in a way. Um, but even without that, there's just like a day doesn't go by that I don't have a thought about him. But the grief has changed over the years. For the first couple of years, it was it was immobilizing. I really I had never experienced that kind of loss or that depth of grief where I didn't know if I wanted to keep living. It was that kind of grief. I wasn't suicidal, I wasn't gonna kill myself, but I just was like, ugh, I could die right now and I'd be fine. Thank you. And uh that's a that's quite debilitating because I'd lost my zest for life. So um what's happened over the last couple years is that that grief, like I I can feel the love in the grief. There's deep love there. When you grieve somebody deeply, it's because there was a deep love. And so I feel I feel my love for him and his love for me. And it's the it's the love that I think continues, and then that's what helps heal the pain of the grief. I don't know if it I don't know. I I I am not there yet. Yeah, it's too fresh. It's still too fresh. I mean, my I ever even now, my mother is gone for years, and every once in a while, that's that's a different kind of grief. But every once in a while I'll go, oh mom, I wish you were here. Like she would have loved to see this book. Even how I spoke about her in the book, yeah. She would have been so proud of me, and I would have been, you know, that's where I would have gotten what I'd always wanted from her. So every once in a while I miss her too. Yeah, yeah. What do you think about grief? Do you think it ever ends?
Speaker 2Um, I I think it gets easier for sure. I've lost my dad. I just lost my grandmother in July, and that was tough.
SpeakerThat's fresh.
Speaker 2But yeah, that one's fresh. But with that one, it's different because she lived a beautiful life. She's 88 years old, and she was ready to go the past few years. She's just ready, get off this earth. She's like, get me out of here. So it's different because she was ready and she lived a long life. And my dad, that was shocking because he was only 52. So it was a big, big thing. Um, but the soulmate thing is what got me because I haven't lost a soulmate, and my soulmate happens to be my husband. Because I know soulmates could be anything. And for me, whether he was I was married to him or not, like he truly is my soulmate. And so yeah, I think that's where I got emotional reading the book. It's because it's like, oh, wow, how is that gonna be for me if it happens in that order? So yeah.
SpeakerYeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2So I don't know how to answer that part yet. But the other grief, okay, I feel like you come to terms with it. Um, yeah, you just yeah, yeah.
SpeakerYou come to terms with it, really, because otherwise you're gonna you're not living anymore. Yeah.
Speaker 2And I feel like if you believe in God, um, that helps a lot too.
SpeakerSo exactly. If you believe that there's something more than what you see, you know, and what you can touch. If you can believe in that, then well, well, well, what happens when somebody dies? Where does their consciousness go? Yeah, I mean, does Zach die? I don't think so. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2I have so I have so much to to ask you because I I have, I'm like looking at my list, I'm like, oh my gosh, and it's almost an hour, but um I I want to share. Um, so this part I read last night. I was like, oh my gosh, this is an answer to something that I've been asking, and I don't want to get emotional, but um that's okay.
Speaker 6I was like, don't get emotional.
Speaker 4I'm like, don't get emotional, but um I just feel like God wanted me to read this book, and yeah. I'm so sorry. No, I'm gonna cry. I'm so sorry.
SpeakerI'm gonna cry. No, this is beautiful. Are you this here here's the thing if this book touched you one person, then it's worth all the years it took to write?
Speaker 4It's just a beautiful story. Um, so thank you for sharing. But um, one of the questions that I've been asking, because I'm constantly wanting to like seek like spiritual knowledge and spiritual wisdom and healing and all these things, and just constantly growing and learning.
Speaker 3And that could be so exhausting. I'm like, when does it ever end? When does it end?
Speaker 4But at the end of your book, and I'll just read a few sentences, and I'm like, oh my gosh, like this answer is it for me. I'm I can't, I was like, do not get emotional.
Speaker 3Um it says, is the work of a seeker ever done? I used to imagine a time when I could rest, not dig deeper, and just be. Now I approach the dig as simply being myself, a lover of truth with ceaseless curiosity about the mysteries of life and death.
Speaker 4And I think why it touched me is because I feel like, okay, something wrong that I'm always seeking, and it's like, no, this is just the way I was built. And so that gives me permission just to keep doing what I'm doing.
SpeakerThat's right. Yeah, that's right. It's your design, and that's why you're doing this work. I mean, you're living your design. Yeah, you're being really true to yourself. Every time you speak to somebody, you're you're learning more.
Speaker 3Oh my gosh, yes, very, very much.
SpeakerYeah, it's touching.
Speaker 4I'm so touched by your response, honestly.
Speaker 3I'm just like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was just like, I clutched my pearls last night. I was like, oh my gosh, like he gave me an answer. He he like gave me an answer that feels like aligns with my spirit.
SpeakerSo I think that's true, yeah. Oh, you are so welcome. And just, I mean, really, if you can embrace it, it is exhausting. There was a time when I was doing a lot of different things, you know. So now I so what I can tell you is at a certain point the seeking gets a little bit more uh it becomes more natural, and it's not like you're the answers start to penetrate and they become you, and then it's not as though you're actively seeking, but you're always curious, and it's always, you know, so you're you're just because that is your design, you're always gonna be wanting to learn more.
Speaker 3Yeah, I think I'm just in the stage of life where it's I haven't figured that part out. It's just everything is big, big emotions and big feelings. Oh, and I think I'm twice your age. So you always turn 80. No, and I think it's great. Yeah, I'm 46, so I'm like, okay, I still want to right in the thick of it.
SpeakerYou're just you're in that you're in the thick of wanting to know and wanting to learn and wanting to grow and wanting to understand take it all in.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah. So just reading this and knowing that you are way ahead. I'm like, okay, okay, it's gonna be okay. It's gonna be okay.
SpeakerIt's gonna be okay. It's already okay. How's that?
Speaker 3It's already perfect.
Speaker 1You're already, you're already okay.
Speaker 2Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1That's beautiful.
Speaker 2So, anyways, I wanted to share that because that was touching.
Speaker 1So um thank you. That's makes my it makes my day, it makes my week, it makes my year. Oh my gosh. Beautiful. Thank you.
Speaker 2All the rest of my questions are more related, and I and I don't we don't have time to ask all of them, but it's just more about being a woman in
Taking Up Space And Closing Invitations
Speaker 2this world. And and because you've are so far ahead in your journey, I just always like to ask uh different questions. So a lot of what we talk about on this podcast is using our voices, not shrinking. Um, you know, a lot of us shrink and we don't want to take up space. So when you hear those words shrinking and taking up space, like what are some words of wisdom for women that are shrinking and that are not using their voices?
SpeakerWell, that is a deep, profound question. I wish I had I wish I had some points to say. Because for me, it was a process of learning how to speak my mind, meaning have an opinion. Like I was one of those people, like, oh, what do you want to do? Okay, whatever you want to do, that's fine. Yeah, that's fine. And I could make myself fine with it, but that's not the point. The point is, well, if you take a moment and you like take a breath into your chest and feel into your belly, what do you want? And it could be as simple as, well, what are you what are you in the mood to eat tonight for dinner? Not what would you like me to make for you? But what am I hungry for? And it can be food, it can be an experience, it can be um uh an idea, a thought. It can be like, what am I in the mood? A book? What am I what am I in the mood for? What do I feel like I want? And for me, that was I think that was the hardest thing to to break through was to learn to speak up and say, This is what I want. And the world didn't fall apart. People didn't go, what? You know, what is it? That the movie Oliver, what is it? You want more porridge? Yes, yes, I want more. I want more. Um, or I want different, or I want it this way, not that way. It's like, and it can I think I think start small. Start on the start in the areas that are not high risk, you know, and it can be just speaking out loud. It may not, I mean, some people may have an easy time saying what they want to eat. I didn't, um, or you know, well, what do you want to do today? Well, I don't know, you know, it's it's those are low risk, yeah, but they give you an opportunity to practice speaking your thoughts. And even for me, saying it out loud, then I hear it, and then I go, well, that's actually not what I want. But I have, it's like there's something about speaking the words, hearing yourself speak out loud, that I think starts to build that muscle. And it it helps you to like this is just coming to me now. It's like it helps you to connect to your intuition. So you might have this sense of something, and then you say it out loud and you hear it out loud, and then you sense it again. You go, well, that's not exactly right. But it's a it's like this looping thing where you you yeah, say it out loud.
Speaker 2Yeah, no, I I understand it exactly. Because I think that's the problem is that we're afraid, we're afraid of the reaction of others, exactly.
SpeakerAnd we've got to get to a point where well, and you know, yeah, it's like, yeah, I mean, we've uh me more than you have taught been taught, although this is a slow, slow, slow evolution in in the um, you know, the respect for women and women finding their place in the world. I think of Hillary Clinton and how she was just persecuted because she spoke up, but she was persecuted by the male patriarchy. I I didn't think of myself as a feminist when I was younger, but I see now that that was there was something in that movement that was saying, wait a minute, we have to speak up and we have to, and yeah, and we may get shot down, but you just pick yourself up and you speak up again.
Speaker 2Exactly. And the right people will listen and will respect you for it. Yeah. They will.
SpeakerYeah, and in, you know, in our own, in our own lives, I think, you know, if if you can practice telling your friend the truth about how you're feeling, if it's about you or if it's about uh some difference, it's that it's that practicing, yeah, practicing in low-risk situations that that ultimately I think builds a muscle. You know, and I'm much better at being what I might call opinionated. Yeah. I have opin I have a lot of opinions, uh, which I kept to myself. And it it it ended up hurting me, not anybody else. It just ended up being, you know, I was the one that was suffering because I was pulling in rather than taking a full breath and exhaling and letting myself be out in the world. And certainly writing this book has been like one big exhale because now it's out there. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2No, congratulations. That's that's a beautiful, those are beautiful words of wisdom. Thank you. Um is your book out already? Or okay? No, September 29th. September 29th, so pretty soon. Pub date. And where can we find your book? Where can people buy it?
SpeakerYou can find it on Amazon, Simon and Schuster, Barnes and Noble Bookshop.com, you know, the major, all of those. And then on, and it's in paperback and ebook, and then on the 29th, when on pub date, it will also be available in audiobook. And I read it.
Speaker 3It's your voice. I love it. Oh, good for you.
SpeakerTalk about, talk about.
Speaker 3I don't want to cry here. Oh my gosh, did you cry while you were recording? I had to stop. Yes, I can only imagine some of the parts I probably would have been just boo-hooing. Yeah, it was tough. It was a tough one. I'm sure, I'm sure.
SpeakerSo it'll be out on the 29th of September.
Speaker 2So Unfolding the Heart, Rosanne Annoni, go pre-order and purchase the book. Because if you're on this spiritual journey and wanting to, I feel like with this book, it just it gives me permission just to be who I am and to just keep going down this path. I think that's why I get emotional. So yeah.
SpeakerOh, that is so beautiful. That is so beautiful. And that I am I feel privileged to have been a part of your show. And I love what you're doing. Oh, thank you.
Speaker 2Thank you, Rosanne. Thank you so much. Thank you for coming on. Thank you for allowing me to read your book. And there's just something beautiful about your spirit. So I think that's where I'm getting emotional. You have a calm presence about you. So thank you.
SpeakerYeah, thank you. Yeah, good luck with the book and the sales.
Speaker 3And again, thank you so much.
SpeakerThank you. All right, Rosanne.
Speaker 2All right, bye-bye.
SpeakerBye-bye.
Speaker 2I'll leave you all with this. The most powerful thing a woman can do is not become someone else. It's to return to herself. Listen to her heart and stop apologizing for what she finds there. Remember, we're not shrinking, we're taking up space. Thank you so much for listening to Virago247. If you haven't done so already, go ahead and hit that subscribe button and please give us five-star ratings. Also, don't forget to follow us on Instagram at Virago24 underscore seven and on Facebook at Virago24 slash 7. And just connect with us and share your story. We'd love to hear from you.
