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 — Master Energy Healer, Radical Self-Love Leader, and Relationship Mentor.
I work with the women who are cycle breakers, grid shakers, and truth layers — the brave souls who came here to dismantle the inherited beliefs that told them they had to chase love, prove their worth, and beg to be chosen.
I help them break free from the karmic cycles and generational patterns that keep them stuck in toxic relationships and self-abandonment — so they can unapologetically choose themselves, reclaim their inherent worth, and become magnetic to soul-aligned love, expansive opportunities, and the liberated life they were born to lead.
Without ever shrinking, settling, or self-abandoning again.
I’ve been where you are, stuck in cycles of chasing love, begging to be chosen, and abandoning myself again and again in the name of love. 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 reclaim the version of you who never had to beg to be chosen.
You ready?
Let’s do this.
The Femme Cast
The Cringe-Worthy Moment That Changed Everything | My Breaking Point, Begging for Love, and Finally Choosing Me
We all have that one moment we’ve buried deep.
The one that creeps back in at 2 a.m., leaving a pit in your stomach.
The moment you swore you’d never tell a soul.
This is mine.
In this raw, unfiltered episode of The Femme Cast, I take you back to the moment I found myself on the floor, crying and begging a man to love me—a man I knew, deep down, was cheating and gaslighting me while swearing he loved me. It was humiliating. Cringe-worthy. And yet... It was the beginning of my awakening.
From the outside, it looked like love.
But inside, I was drowning in confusion, emotional neglect, self-abandonment, and the desperate hope that if I could just be “enough,” he would finally choose me.
This wasn’t just about him—it was about a lifetime of chasing emotionally unavailable men.
It was about a father I adored but who didn’t know how to be emotionally present.
It was about the story I had unconsciously lived for decades.
The story that love must be earned, begged for, and proven worthy of.
Inside this episode, we unpack:
- The runner-chaser dynamic and why it feels so addictive
- How early emotional wounds prime us to mistake pain for passion
- The distorted definition of love I had to unlearn
- Why your “rock bottom” moment might just be your soul trying to wake you up
- The truth about men who say all the right things but never show up
- And the single, most pivotal realization that began my healing journey
This isn’t a fairytale love story.
It’s the story of a woman who got tired of begging to be chosen—and started choosing herself.
If you've ever felt like you had to perform, prove, or plead for someone’s love…
If you're stuck in a cycle of chasing emotionally unavailable people…
If you're ready to reclaim the version of you that knows love shouldn't hurt…
Then this conversation is your mirror, your permission, and maybe even your turning point.
PS: Stop begging to be chosen. Choose yourself instead.
You’re not here to beg, chase, or perform for the bare minimum.
You’re here to reclaim your power and become magnetic to real, soul-aligned love, success, and abundance.
Reclaim the version of you that never had to beg to be chosen.
Book your 90-minute Sacred Reclamation Intensive.
But fair warning—authentic connections, aligned opportunities, and breakthroughs in love, money, and purpose are inevitable.
Hey you guys, what is up? And welcome back to the show. I'm so excited and grateful to have you here. We're gonna try and get through this today, but I've got a festival going on outside that I completely forgot about. So there's drums and there's beats and there's sirens and banging. There's so much going on outside, but anyway, whatever it is what it is, I live on a main street. This is what happens, especially in the summer. There's always a festival on the weekends and this is the only time I have to record. So, other than, you know, taking a strike from the podcast all summer, this is what we're going to have to do. So one day I'll manifest the studio One day, okay, so anyway, welcome back to the show.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:Today is going to be one of those conversations about and I'm sure you've all had these those cringe-worthy moments that you've never told anybody about and you kind of wish in the back of your mind would just fucking disappear and stop popping up every now and then to remind you. Hey, you stooped that low once, do you remember? And you feel that awful pit in your stomach. You're like, oh cringe, because you can't believe you actually stooped that low or got that low. Well, it happens more than once. Obviously, this is one of those times when you know it was one of those turning points, those markers where you know there was the version of me before that moment and then there was the version of me after, and I can't say that it was an instant transformation, but what began was a very slow, gradual evolution out of who I was into who I was becoming. I was deliberately looking back and trying to find the markers in my journey to say, okay, where were the turning points? Like what actually happened? What? When were those moments when I actually said, no, I'm ready to write, I'm ready to write a different story? And this was one of those moments.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:So, um, it was with one of the douchebags. I can't remember which number I put him at, but he's one of the douchebags. So if you ever listen to the douchebag diaries, he's one of them and you know we had been together for quite a while and you know we were, you know we were really really, really well. I was really trying to make this relationship work. We were broken. For for as long as I can remember we'd been broken and I knew he was cheating, even though he would never admit it, I knew he was cheating and then making me think that I was crazy for thinking it. And I have to, I have to preface that with saying, like I'm never the person to think her man is cheating, like that was the first time I ever had that experience and I knew it in every fiber and by being that he was cheating.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:There were signs everywhere, there was clues everywhere, there was mysterious phone calls and emergencies at work at you know 1030 on a Saturday night, like I mean, there was just too many things that were pointing to the direction that, hey, you know what something's not right here. But, you know, continuously making me feel like it was me and it was all in my head and I was, you know, creating all the problems, even though I'd never had that issue before, even though I'd never had that issue before. And also there was, you know, he was somebody who would always say I love you. He would always say exactly what I needed to hear to silence me, but then actually his actions would say the exact opposite. So, even though he would say he loved me, he never acted like he loved me. Even though he would say he was there for me, he actually never was there for me, even though he would say he wanted to be with me, we would never actually make plans to do anything together or go anywhere together or, you know, have any kind of a life together. You know, have any kind of a life together. So you know, it really started coming to a head, you know, with everything that we had experienced and all the pain and all the trauma and all the fighting and all the trying to make it work. And you know I had been fighting so hard to hang on to this relationship and I can remember, you know, trying to put the cheating behind me and trying to. You know, maybe it was all in my head, you know, trying to think positive and trying to reframe my thoughts, my beliefs, around that. Y'all know how I feel about that.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:Listen to last week's episode um, trying to convince myself that everything was okay when I knew it wasn't, and doing everything in my power really to get this man to act like he actually loves me, to act like a partner who would actually show up for me, to feel like an actual partner to you know, to feel like an actual partner, not just, you know, somebody. I was like dicking around with right Because we weren't, we weren't dicking around, at least you know we didn't not, we weren't. We were together and we were committed to one another. But was the commitment real, I don't know Right. Like, when I look back now it's like, well, what was he committed to? Was he committed to me? Or was he just the idea of being with me that he was committed to? Because, like I said, he would say that I'd love you, he would say all the right things, but he would never do all the right things, and that's the part that was missing. No-transcript, and that's what really shows what love is, you know.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:So there we were, having yet another argument of you know the story that had been unfolding, which was me working hard to get him to act like he loved me, only to be disappointed and angry and hurt when it didn't work. Like it almost felt like the harder I tried to make him act like he loved me, the more he moved away. This is where that whole runner chaser dynamic starts to kick in, right. Um, so that was another, you know, big learning experience for me. But you know I wouldn't, I wouldn't clue into that until much later in the game, unfortunately, um, but what did become obvious, painfully obvious in this moment was.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:I can still remember we were in our living room and we were having this argument and I can remember and I don't know why, I was sitting on the floor, but at the time I was sitting on the floor. I remember I was sitting on the floor in front of the sofa and he was on the sofa and of course there's a train going by right now Sorry, guys, it is what it is. So I was sitting on the floor and he was sitting on the sofa and I can't remember what we were arguing about or why I was crying, but I was crying hysterically. I remember I was crying hysterically and I can remember the words so crisp and vividly in my memory. This is the only fragment of that moment that I can remember and I can remember looking at him and saying like I just want you to love me, like why can't you love me? And I remember him glaring at me with such disdain for me, saying that, and I don't know where that disdain came from.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:But I remember being taken back like energetically, like I remember my body just kind of shifting back and looking at him and it was like there was something in my body, that moment that knew this isn't right, like this is not right, this is not what love looks like. You know, it was a long time after that before I ever ended up leaving this person and moving on, and even way longer after that that I actually started my healing journey. So to say that, you know, this was the pivotal moment that kind of started it all. Like yeah, no, like I think this was the first moment that I was able to look at my experience and say that I was able to look at my experience and say this isn't right, something is not right here. I don't know what it is, but this is not what love looks like, this isn't what love should look like. And maybe that was the real, like the realization was this isn't what love should look like. Because I think in my mind somewhere I thought love did look that way.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:Because, you know, when I look back, you know in retrospect, I was always begging and trying to convince emotionally unavailable dudes to love me. Like that was like the story of my life and I think it started, you know, it started at a very young age with my dad who God bless him, like I mean, loves me to bits, but you know he's had his own trauma, he's carrying his own wounding, he's not good with, you know, navigating emotional experience at all, like he's actually like really challenged in that department and still is actually more so now in his old age. And I feel, like you know, he was in many ways very emotionally unavailable, not because he didn't love me, but because he wasn't emotionally available for me, right, and so I think I was always kind of playing this role of trying to convince and chase and beg for emotionally unavailable men to open up to me, to be vulnerable with me, to be in deeper connection with me, like I think this is something, this was a story and a pattern that you know began way back, way back in the day, right, and I had kind of, you know, even through my, you know, even through like high school and like even my twenties. I can remember early, early 20s. I remember, like you know, always just crushing on the most emotionally unavailable, like uninterested in me people I could find, and like getting into these marathon crushes of like two years, three years of crushing over some guy that wouldn't give me the time of day, and I feel like I basically kind of primed myself to be this beggar of love, like I hate to say it, but it's true, it sounds so cringy, but I mean it was just like it was. Just it had become my MO.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:You know, and I think you know, when I look back on that moment, that was the first moment in my life where I said this isn't right. Love isn't supposed to look like this, I'm not supposed to have to beg for it. And I think in that moment there was a part of my being, a part of my essence, because our soul knows and 1111 on the clock, as I said that our soul knows what's available to us. And I think in that moment my soul kind of went yo, this is not what love looks like. This is the illusion that you've created of what you think love looks like, based on your own experience and what you've been taught to believe about your worthiness of love and how much you actually deserve. This is a byproduct of that. This is not where your story ends, this is just the fucking beginning.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:And so I think that was that moment where I was, and I remember, like the days and weeks that followed, I was so quiet because I couldn my most vulnerable, my most emotionally raw and instead of being met with love, I was met with animosity and so, you know, I took it away and I think from that moment I slowly started to break away and it would take time to unfold. Like I said, it would take time for me to leave that relationship and it would take time for me to begin my healing journey and it would take time for me to recognize that I was repeating that pattern again and again and again and to actually say, okay, hold on a second, why do I keep repeating this? The whole thing would take so much time to unfold. But I think the key takeaway in today's conversation is, you know, we have to look at, we have to take a look at our lowest moments. We have to take a look at our lowest moments and ask ourselves what was that moment trying to teach me and what was that moment trying to show me? And even if it is kind of cringy or uncomfortable or awkward to go there like there was something there otherwise it wouldn't have happened Like these are very important moments in our spiritual evolution and in our healing and I know that the importance in that moment was for me to see how number one, the thought patterns and the beliefs that kind of led me to this point right, this low point that I was at, and also to look at, you know, where my definition of love was distorted, you know, and what a loving relationship was look like was distorted.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:Because, truly, you know, when I look back on that relationship, like at the time, you know, I thought it was so loving, I thought it was, you know, it was the person that I felt at one point the safest with um, that I would trust with my life, Like I would put my life in his hands and I never would give in it of second thought, only to have the whole thing pull this 180 degree, turn on me where it's like, how could you, how could you hurt me so deeply when I had put all my faith in you, um, and that was a big, that was a big turning point for me. And I think also, like I said, you know, just recognizing that you know, regardless of what we've told ourselves about a person, regardless of what we, you know they might say, you know they may say all the right things, they may say what, exactly what it is that we want to hear, but ultimately, you know, they show you who they are again and again, and I think what I'm trying to say here is that, you know, I had to look at where was my view of him distorted, because I was putting I. It was just too easy for me to dismiss what I was seeing so that I could accept what I was hearing him say as truth. It was so nice for him to say I love you and to say it again and again and again, and I really genuinely wanted to believe that, but unfortunately his actions were not showing that at all. Um, and so I needed to accept that.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:You know, number one, where was my vision of love distorted? How did I get to this point where I would think it was okay to be on the floor begging some guy to love me, who was clearly showing me again and again and again with his actions that he didn't Like? Where in my mind did that become okay? Right, because, like I said, I still cringe to this day when I think that I like. How could I have gotten to that point where I was literally crying on the floor on my knees in front of this guy, asking him but I just want you to love me. And what made it feel okay to do that. What made my vision of love and what love looked like so distorted that I could have not seen how unloving he was being towards me for so long. Nevermind the cheating, but the lying, the gaslighting, the you know, the manipulation like there was so much you know and making me feel like it was all me and in my head. You know at what, at what? Where did that become the picture of love, and and why? And was it love or was it just something that was helping me to avoid looking at something that was already wounded within me, which ultimately was the truth, right?
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:Um, but I think we need to do that. I think we need to look at our relationships, especially if you've always been in toxic relationships, like if all you've known is toxic. You really have to look at your relationships, okay, and say, okay, is this normal, is this actually healthy? Is this good for me? Is this really what love is supposed to look like, or is this just familiar? And is this what life love is supposed to look like? Or is this just familiar? And is this what life taught me that love looks like? And can you be open to a different definition or experience? And that takes a lot of unlearning and so much of who we are and our self-worth is tied up into that experience that it becomes very difficult to unravel. But I promise you unraveling it is worth it.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:So I guess the invitation for you today is, if you're somebody who's been in a pattern of toxic relationships your entire life, like, look beyond your dating relationships, look beyond your romantic relationships, go back to, like, childhood friendships, family relationships, extended family. You know, where were the toxicities, where were the imbalances, where were you chasing people for love and attention and affection, and how have those patterns now shown up in your relationships today? You know, and is that the definition of love that you want? Because if you don't, you can choose a different definition. It is so easy to choose a different definition. You just have to undo all the stuff that made you believe that that's how love got to look for you. And that's usually the harder work, because that's usually where we have to face the parts of ourselves, the shadow parts that we don't always want to look at.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:But it was truly, truly, truly, a very pivotal moment for me and I think that was the beginning of the end of that relationship. It was a very slow undoing and I, you know, I took, I took my time and it was just be and I didn't even know I was doing it. It was basically putting one foot in the front of the other until it was done. And when it was done, you know, I'll be honest, it was pretty easy, because I think I had been letting go that whole time since that moment, because I realized in that moment he's never going to love me the way that I want him to. And you know, whether he did or he didn't love me, you know, I have my theory. I can't speak for him. I don't think he did. I think he loved the idea of being with me. I don't think he actually genuinely loved me, or maybe that was just his way of loving. But that's certainly not what I wanted in a loving relationship, certainly didn't want cheating.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:I don't believe that you can love someone and cheat on them. I actually don't. Well, I mean, if it was a one-off thing, like people make mistakes. I think people aren't perfect. If you're out there and you're listening and you're wondering, you know, does he, doesn't he? I think people make mistakes. I think people are flawed. I think, you know, the human experience is very complex. It's never black and white. I think, you know, we all tend to fuck up and I think there's room for fuck up in relationship. I really do.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:I think it's in how we deal with it, and I've talked about this in other episodes. I think it's how we in, how we deal with it that makes a difference as to whether or not, hey, are we acting out of love or are we acting out of ego, and does this relationship stand a chance or doesn't it? I think if people take accountability for their actions and I think if people put in the work to heal and mend the relationship, then I think anything is possible. But if it's a pattern like it was, then there's no point. There really is no point, I mean, unless that's something that you want. If that's something that you want, then by all means like, go for it.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:You know, if you, you know many people, many people are experiencing, you know, new forms of relationships where they're, you know, there's openness and people can. You know there's openness and people can, you know, be with other people and it's not an issue and they've learned to love that way and I think I think that's okay and I think that it's each up to you know, it's always up to the individual who and how you love and what feels right for you. But when that doesn't feel right for you, if that's not what love looks like for you, sure maybe we need to be open to defining our relationships differently and defining love differently. But I think that both people need to come to the table in agreement for what that looks like. We at least have to be on the same page as we evolve.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:Who knows, maybe one day I will be ready for an open relationship. I don't know, but I want to be ready for that before I'm forced into it. I don't want to be in an open relationship unknowingly and then told that I'm not in an open relationship when I, you know, get wind that I'm in an open relationship. You know what I mean. Like that's just not right. Both people have to be willing participants in that experience. So I clearly was not. I clearly was not.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:So you know all that to say look at your relationships and look at you know it's okay those moments where you know you want to cringe at yourself at how low you actually got. You know those low points, those emotional rock bottoms that we go through and points that we would never want anybody to ever find out about, because they're points that we would never want anybody to ever find out about because they're cringy and embarrassing to even think about. But those moments are always teaching us something and, you know, I always say those are the really, really, really key markers in seeing where are your beliefs about yourself and your worthiness of love, where are they pointing to and what is it they're trying to show you and teach you and what is it that you need to evolve through as an experience? Right, this was a massive and profound experience for me and it shifted me in so many ways and it was subtle in the moment, but the ripple effect of that moment was so profound, like when I think about how much has happened since and it all centered from that. You know that was that, that was that big, that tiny little pebble in the water that created the ripple effect and, my God, the change that came from that. You know, over time, gradually, it was like it was amazing.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:Would I go through that again? Yeah, abso-fucking-lutely. To know that I got to experience all that. I got to experience, I've learned all that. I've learned along the way, I've healed all that I have. That's not to say that I'm done I'm still healing, but to know that how much of my life and my essence has transformed because of that moment, fuck yeah, I would do it again, abso-fucking-lutely. Okay, that is it, you guys. Stuff's getting loud out there, so I'll see if I can do at least one more episode. But let me know if this resonated for you in the comments, wherever you're seeing this, and, of course, if you love this episode, please leave a positive rating or review on iTunes or Spotify or wherever it is that you're seeing this. Until next time, you guys, massive love.
