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 Hidden Gift in Betrayal: How I Let Go of the Shame of Staying and Falling for the Lies
What if the deepest betrayal you’ve ever experienced wasn’t a sign of your weakness, but the very initiation you needed into your most powerful transformation?
In this raw and deeply personal episode of The Femme Cast, I pull back the curtain on one of the most painful chapters of my life: discovering infidelity, staying longer than I “should have,” and carrying the crushing shame that came with both. Not just the shame of being betrayed, but the insidious shame of staying—even when my intuition was screaming at me to leave.
For years, I hid my story. I cringed at the thought of admitting how long I stayed. I ignored the signs, made excuses, and silenced my inner voice because saying it out loud would mean I could no longer pretend it wasn’t happening. I was humiliated by what others might think, and even more devastated by what I thought it meant about me.
But here’s what I’ve learned on the other side: betrayal isn’t proof of your unworthiness. It’s often the wake-up call you didn’t know you needed. It reveals the ways you’ve been betraying yourself, teaches you radical self-trust, and sets you up for a chapter of life you could never step into otherwise.
In this episode, I share:
🎤 How I moved through the shame of staying as long as I did (and falling for the lies).
🎤 Why betrayal can be the catalyst for building unshakeable self-trust.
🎤 The real reason you don’t leave until you’re ready—and why that’s okay.
🎤 How to stop blaming yourself and finally release the shame that keeps you stuck.
🎤 Why staying may have been exactly what you needed to walk away empowered, never looking back.
If you’ve ever asked yourself, “Why did I stay so long?” or felt the weight of embarrassment for not leaving sooner, this conversation will set you free. You’ll walk away with a fresh perspective that allows you to let yourself off the hook, see your strength through the pain, and embrace betrayal as the portal to your becoming.
Because healing doesn’t happen when society tells you to leave—it happens when you’re ready to step into a life where you will never again abandon yourself.
Are you healing from cheating? Betrayal? A heartbreak that not only broke your heart but broke your life?
If so, join me for She Rises: A FREE & LIVE 90-minute healing and activation experience for the woman ready to alchemize the pain of lies, betrayal, and being cheated on into unapologetic power, radiant confidence, and the woman she was always meant to be.
Betrayal doesn’t get the final word — you do.
https://thefemmecast.kit.com/masterclass
Hey guys, what is up and welcome back to the show. I am so excited and grateful to have you guys here. Welcome if you're new. Today we're talking about how I moved through the shame of betrayal, the shame that I felt for being betrayed on and the shame especially that I felt for staying as long as I did and for believing the lies, the manipulation. And you know there was so much wrapped, so much shame wrapped up in that experience that you know, for the longest time you know going through it and you know recognizing that there was a long period of just kind of being in denial and you know, wanting not to believe what I knew in my body was true. Um, so there was, you know, that long period of denial where I didn't want to believe it. And then you know, when I finally came to the realization I'd been lying to myself this whole time, you know. Then you know it was double whammy, shame. It was shame that, you know, I, you know he didn't love me enough to stay faithful to me, that I wasn't enough for him to be faithful to me and I was. There was shame in that.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:Then there was also shame in, you know, being in denial for as long as I was and falling for the lies and falling the manipulate, falling for the manipulation, and you know, to the point where I never told anybody what was happening like not even my closest family and friends was happening. Like not not even my closest family and friends really knew. I mean, I think really, my mom and my sister knew very like like high level details, but you know, it wasn't anything that I was able to really talk about and that was because I had so much shame in me, like I was so ashamed of myself. For for again, for um, you know, feeling like I somehow failed the relationship. If um, you know, he betrayed me, it was somehow my responsibility, it was my not good enough-ness, it was my unworthiness, it was something about me that was inherently wrong that led to the betrayal right. And then also, you know, on the other side and I think probably the harder one was sticking around for as long as I did and being in denial for as long as I was. I think there was more shame around that than anything else. And you know, for the longest time, when I did the math on how long I stayed and how much time I wasted and how much energy and effort I put in to try to repair this relationship. Like I would cringe every time I did the girl math on this, Like I literally wanted to vomit in my own shame.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:And I don't think, you know, when I look back now, I don't think I actually talked to anyone really about what happened until years later. Even to this day, like when I talk about it on my podcast, my family and friends are like yo, dude, like why did you say anything Like we didn't know, like it was that, like you were going through that or that you were feeling that way or you were thinking that way. And it's like why did you say anything Like we didn't know, like it was that, like you were going through that or that you were feeling that way or you were thinking that way. And it's like I didn't even know how to articulate what I was thinking or feeling at the time. And that was because you know that was a byproduct of being somebody who suppressed her emotions so much. Right, and you know it's why I do what I do now.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:But you know, I think that when I started to tell people, you know there was this part of me that again, you know, going back to the shame. I think I knew that. If I say this out loud, like if I say, because, again, you know, like you know, for me, I'm not going to say it was unique, but it was, it had its own kind of nuance, right, I'm not going to say it was unique, but it was, it had its own kind of nuance, right, in the sense that you know, there were so many signs that were the betrayal was happening, but I had no confession, I had no smoking gun. You know, technically, Like I mean, yeah, you could say that a lot of the evidence that I was seeing was hearsay, but like, like you'd have to be like, like even I remember telling a friend of mine, um, well, after the fact, they're like she was like, well, what were the signs? You know, like, what were the signs that that you saw that he was cheating and and like, how did it all unfold? And so I kind of took her through, like the chronological order of you know, the signs and the situations that were happening and how they were unfolding and how I came to the realization that you know there was betrayal in my relationship.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:And she looked at me and she said, like you know, why did you? Why like? Why did you? Why did you doubt it? I was. I was waiting for for proof. I was waiting for a confession. I was waiting to be sure. She's like what did you doubt it? I was waiting for proof. I was waiting for a confession. I was waiting to be sure. She's like what did you need in order to be sure? Like, did you need, like a neon light? Like to hit you over the head with it. She's like oh my God, like I could get into all the signs now. But you know, the last thing that I want to do is create a frenzy of women who think that their partner is cheating on them because of you know my experience. You know my experience.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:Some of the behaviors and the patterns I might've seen in my situation might be normal and somebody else's and might not mean a damn thing, but because they were so out of the ordinary for what I had experienced in this relationship, because the behavior was so out of left field and unlike the person that I knew, and because, you know, everything kind of happened simultaneously with a whole bunch of other things that were going on in the relationship, it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out. But I will say and I've said this again time and time again on the show is that you know, a big part, I think, of why I experienced the betrayal that the way that I did, and why there was never that evidence, I think, for me, that hardcore, concrete evidence that I could firmly say, okay, I'm out, like you know, I've got all that I need, I've got it in writing, I've got it right here in a photo, whatever video, a screenshot, you know, a scandal, like video text message that goes viral. You know what I mean. The reason I think I didn't have any of that was because, again, I do believe that betrayal, when it happens to you, shakes you to the very core and the foundation of who you are and it shows you all the ways that you're betraying yourself and it also, I think, elevates you to a level Like it prepares you for the ways that you're betraying yourself and it also, I think, elevates you to a level like it prepares you for that next level. So who are you when you stop betraying yourself? Who do you get to become, and how is this experience preparing you for that next level version of yourself? I really needed to master and embody self-trust and that's part of what I'm doing now. You know, like if I didn't have full trust in myself, if I wasn't able to fully embody self-trust and trusting my intuition and trusting what I feel, what I sense and what I know is true in my body, I couldn't do the work that I do, you know. So I needed to really master that skill. So it was part showing me where I was betraying myself and part preparing me for that moment when I was ready to stop the self, stop with the self betrayal and really just choose myself and move forward.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:You know, and again you know, all the proof and the validation that I needed came after I made the decision. You know, people started messaging me, reaching out to me, letting me know what was happening that I didn't see because I either wasn't in the room, um, or, you know, didn't know about. You know, certain extracurricular people that were in my relationship, right, additional parties that I was not aware of, um, you know, reached out to me and let me know, so what was happening and really validated everything that up until like the last few years, everything that I knew in my body was true, but I couldn't prove, and I think that you know, because I couldn't prove it. I think there was a part of me that, well, if there's no proof, I can easily just convince myself that it's not true. You know, and go into self-denial and self-betrayal, even though I knew in my body it was true, I knew, I knew there were so many, there were so many.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:You could feel it happening energetically and again, like I stressed this, I've said this before I was never somebody. I'd never accused anybody that I'd ever been with any one of my partners, I'd never accused anybody of being unfaithful to me. This was the first time I had gone through this experience and when I came to that first moment of realization, it literally shook the ground beneath me, like is this actually happening? Like is this real? And so it took me a minute right to really, um, accept that. And I think you know there was.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:There was again, so many reasons that you know I, I didn't want to say it out loud. One if I said it out loud and if I told people the signs and the synchronicities that I was seeing that it was happening, then I would have to believe it. You know, I couldn't live in denial anymore because deep down I knew, like girl, you are, you crazy. It's like you know what's happening, it's there, you can see it, right, and again, it's a shame. Also, you know, if I were to tell people what I was seeing, what I was experiencing, what I was feeling, it would be the shame that you know.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:Coming to the realization that my you know, my person that I was in relationship with was unfaithful to me, this person that I trusted, like I felt so foolish, like I trusted this person with my life, like I was, like, completely. I never doubted their love for me, I never doubted the relationship, I never doubted the longevity, I never doubted the longevity of the relationship. So, when it happened, I was completely blindsided and I felt shame for that. And then I felt shame for how long I stayed, you know, and put up with it and lived in that denial, even though I knew what was happening. Right, all of it, all of it, I do believe, was by divine design.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:So, and I will say this, like if you're somebody who is struggling with the shame of being betrayed in a relationship, who's struggling with the shame of how long it took you to actually accept it and make a decision, and maybe you still haven't accepted it, maybe you're still in there and you're still trying to make it work and you're still in the denial phase. Or maybe you're ready to leave, or maybe you've already left but still feeling the shame of how long you stayed, tried to make it work, tried to believe what they were saying instead of taking what you knew internally to be true. If there's any part of you that's feeling shame in that, I really want you to hear me, because this is how I shifted, the shame that I felt, and now I'm able to talk about it with you guys today. Otherwise I wouldn't be able to um, because for the longest time, I did hold shame in this, and that was this I think when we talk about, you know, betrayal, trauma, and and what it does, and and to you, and how it shifts your life in terms of, number one, showing you where you're betraying yourself and, number two, preparing you for that next stage in your life, that next, that next chapter that you're, that this relationship is literally trying to catapult you into.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:Once you stop with the self-betrayal which is what I do think, what happens, and sometimes those relationships do get to stay, sometimes they don't. It depends. I've done an episode before on should I stay or should I go? When is the right time to leave a relationship after infidelity? When do you leave? When do you stay and try and work it out? When is it time to hightail it out of there? You know, because you know every experience is nuanced. I don't believe that you know every relationship ends after betrayal. I believe we all make mistakes and nobody's perfect, but it really depends on how both parties are coming to the conversation and how they're dealing with the betrayal. That makes a difference as to whether or not this is something that you can move through as a couple or if it's time to hightail it out of there and move on and get into that next chapter. Right, so there's that.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:But if you're somebody who, like I said, you know you're, you either either just move through a betrayal or you've been moving through betrayal, whether you've left, or contemplating leaving or whatever that betrayal is happened to show you how you had been betraying yourself. So in the events leading up to that betrayal, where were you letting yourself down? Where were you putting yourself on a back burner? Where were you deprioritizing your needs, your dreams, your goals, your ambitions to make this relationship the center, focus of your life? That's usually. That's usually when these betrayals come to rock us.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:I know, I know that I had completely given my power away to this relationship. I trusted him blindly. I, you know, made this relationship the central focus of my life. My who, I was, my identity, my purpose, my future was all wrapped around this person. The relationship took center focus for me. It was my number one priority in my life and that, you know, that's when it becomes dangerous, because that's when you literally disappear into the relationship, right, you become this hazy mirage right in your own life, while this relationship and this person is taking center stage and center priority, right? So there's shame in that. Then there's the shame in, you know, realizing how wrong you were right.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:So, in letting go of that shame, of how wrong I was about this person, again it comes back to acknowledging this experience for me and what it was meant to do. This experience was teaching me to trust myself. This experience was teaching me to no longer abandon myself and to trust myself, moving forward, to trust what my feelings were telling me, to trust what my body was telling me, beyond what I could see or hear from him and from just life in general. I needed to be able to separate and listen to my own inner knowing and trust that fully. And so it took a long time for me to get there, like it took a long time for that evolution to actually happen. Because, you know, finding out, realizing what was happening, feeling the embarrassment, the shame and the humiliation that it was happening. And then you know going back and forth from denial to anger to acceptance, to back to denial and back to anger, and you know, like it was just this roller coaster, this period of just like like going back and forth between self-trust, self-doubt, self-loathing, self-blame, and it took a long time. It took many layers of healing and rebuilding and tearing, you know, being torn back down again, to have to rebuild again in order for this muscle, this self-trust, this belief in myself, to really really really become solid, to really become something you know, to flex the muscle enough so that it was strong enough to really hold me moving forward right. And so it took a long time and you know how I've let go of a lot of that shame.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:First, the shame of the betrayal, you know, was that this was supporting me. This betrayal was trying to wake me up from how I was betraying myself all this time in the relationship and how I had turned my back on myself and that relationship was literally trying to mirror to me how I had turned my back on me, right? So you know whether people will say, yeah, but you know what, maybe if I had shown up differently, the betrayal wouldn't have happened, or whatever. You know, none of us are perfect. We're all messy, like I think I said this in a previous episode, right, we all have our shit. We all have stuff in a healthy relationship, in a healthy, emotionally mature relationship.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:You will Talk about it. You will try and work things out. You will address the issues. You will. You know might be messy, you might fuck it up. You might try and work things out. You will address the issues you will. You know it might be messy, you might fuck it up, you might make a few mistakes, but you know you'll find a way to work through it In this relationship, whatever problems. You know.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:However, way I was showing up, that was maybe triggering for him or making him feel less. You know less than, or you know so less. You know less than, or you know whatever the case was, instead of him coming to me and talking to me and working things through with me, he chose the path of betrayal. And when he chose the path, he didn't just choose a path of betrayal, then he chose to lie about it for years and make me feel like I was a crazy person for thinking it, you know, and that takes deliberate. That takes a deliberate, conscious decision, one that you know would undermine me, and I think that's probably why that lesson in self-trust was so important to me is because it was so fragmented.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:After being in that situation of no, nothing happened. It's all in your mind. You're making it all up, yada, yada, yada, and really having to combat, like, combat all that and come to the conclusion that I could trust myself and feel solid in what I knew to be true in my body and internally, right in my intuition, and then being able to finally get the validation and the reassurance that I needed after I made the decision to leave, like it was all by divine design to get me to heal my trust in myself, which was deeply fragmented from, you know, relationships that I had trusted before that you know, didn't you know? Relationships that I had trust before I trusted before that you know, didn't, you know, betrayed me in different ways. Right, who let me down in different ways, people that I thought were good, people that didn't end up being good people are people that I, you know, put my faith in, that I shouldn't have put my faith in, and so, you know, my trust in myself and people was very fragmented, and being able to really to trust my inner guidance and my inner knowing was something that I really strongly needed to develop in order to be able to do what I'm, what I'm here doing with you guys today, and so this needed to get to the very core of my self trust issues. This needed to keep me there as long as it did, so I could undo all that, so that this experience could prepare me for my next chapter.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:The reality is, had I not stayed as long as I had, I wouldn't have fully exercised this self-flex, this self-trust muscle, to the point where I could count on it to carry me in this next leg of my journey. You know what I mean I would have if I had left sooner. I wouldn't have done the work I needed to do. I wouldn't have cultivated that trust in myself that I really needed to take forward. I probably would have gone back, really needed to take forward. I probably would have gone back right and and, like you know, committed myself to having to go through that experience again, either with him or with somebody else right, had I not cultivated that strong, strong self trust that I needed going forward.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:And it's funny because since then and I'm just realizing this now there has been some relationships where I've had to use that call on that self trust again, where you know they're saying, verbally saying, one thing, but I'm seeing and feeling something totally different from what they're telling me. And I just need to trust what I'm seeing and feeling and not so much what I'm being told, because oftentimes you know people know what we want to hear and they'll just say it. You know not to paint, not to paint the world in such a negative way, but you know there are people out there who know what they want to hear and they'll say what we want to hear because they want to salvage a relationship with us, because they want to avoid an argument with us, because you know it's not always sinister, you know what I mean. But there is something to be said for being able to trust what you're sensing, what you're seeing, versus what you're being told, right. So this level of self-trust could never like. I would never have reached this level had I left sooner.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:I left when the trust in myself was cultivated such that I could leave and be unwavering in that decision and leave with a sense of no, you know what, I know what I see and I know what I feel and I know what's true. Nothing's going to convince me otherwise. I don't need proof anymore. I just know I see and I know what I feel and I know what's true. Nothing's going to convince me Otherwise. I don't need proof anymore. I just know I don't need proof for what I already know. Right, and that's how I made the decision to finally leave. And when I did like I said, all the proof showed up. So when you and here's what I want you to take away from this when you realize you know if you're holding on to shame for being betrayed on and the shame of staying as long as you did and putting up with the lies and the stories and the manipulation and falling for it again and again, if you're feeling shame for that, I want you to listen and I want you to take two messages from today's episode, and that is one.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:This happened to you not because you weren't good enough or because you weren't lovable enough or because you weren't anything enough. This happened because it was trying to wake you up from all the ways that you were betraying yourself in this connection or in any connection, and maybe in many of your relationships. Right Might not just be isolated to this one. It could be in many of your relationships. Right Might not just be isolated to this one. It could be in many of your relationships. So pay attention when are you betraying yourself and how have you been betraying yourself? And that's a lot of what we're going to do in she Rises.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:If you're joining me on September the 15th, we have a live masterclass, free masterclass, coming up on September the 15th, 8. I'm trying to remember. Is it 8 pm Eastern time? I think it's 8 pm Eastern time, depending on when you're listening to this episode, so please do join me for that. The link is in the show notes below. But where was I going with this? I lost my thought process. So there's a shame in you know letting go of the shame that you know this happened for you. I know it's painful and I know it sucks to hear that, but this really happened to just wake you up and get you to realize all the ways you were probably already betraying yourself. And it's also really giving you a really solid indication and preparing you for this next era, when you finally make the bold move to stop betraying yourself, whether that means leaving this relationship altogether or choosing to decentralize this relationship and make you the center focus of your life. You know, for each person it'll be different, but it's showing you what you're capable of once you stop with the self-betrayal, and it's also showing you what muscles it's also helping you to flex the muscles that you need to flex and the ways that you need to strengthen in order to prepare yourself for that next chapter.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:And how long you stay really has no. Like you leave when you're when, when, when you're ready to leave, and that's not to say it's not to say that you leave when there are no doubts anymore, cause there still will be doubts. Like there were still doubts when I left, like those didn't go away. Like it's always like one of those things, like it never feels like the right time. It's always going to feel as uncomfortable as fuck. You know what I mean. It's always going to feel uncomfortable, it's always going to feel just a little bit too soon.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:But when I left, I was solid enough to know my truth, to know what my mind was telling me, to know what my intuition was telling me, to know what my body was telling me, know my body was telling me and to and to, and to just tell myself that, no matter what happens, I'm going to be okay. And when I left, there was no wavering. Should I go back? Shouldn't I go back to make the wrong decision? Like I knew I made the right decision, even though it was hard, even though it was scary, even though I didn't know what this next like chapter of my life was going to look like, I knew I made the right decision, you know. So, by saying that you're ready to make the move or to make the decision or take the aligned action, doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to be easy. It's not. But you are going to feel it's just going to feel like the right time. Right, and I think that you know. People always ask me how did you know when the right time was?
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:Um, for the first time in years, being in that connection and trying to make it work, I think it was, for the first time, the only thing more uncomfortable than the thought of leaving was the thought of staying. Like that became more uncomfortable for me, Like it was just like I, every fiber of my being, just did not want to be there anymore, because I knew I deserved better. I knew there was more out there for me. I knew there was other things that I was settling for for so long wasn't, was way less than what I actually deserved in a connection, and I needed to start, you know, and I knew that there was this part of me that just wanted to start making me the central focus of my life and see, you know, what I could kind of accomplish on my own and what, and what I was capable of. Because I think deep down my soul knew that there was more.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:I mean, there was that moment on the beach and I think I've shared it, another episode where I was, like you know, kind of we were on a, we were on vacation, and I remember I was laying on the beach and I was saying my gosh, like there's gotta be more to life than this, like I had never, we'd never, felt more disconnected. There were still signs the betrayal was happening after years of being in denial and doing the work and trying to show up and nurture their connection. We still weren't past that. We still had an established, reestablished trust. And you know, here we are pretending like it's all working, and it wasn't by far it was not working.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:And I'm lying on the beach that day on vacation and I'm thinking to myself good God, like there's got to be more to life than this. And I remember I was, it was like magic hour. And then the water was kind of sparkling under the, the sun which was starting to set, and I just was looking at the sparkling water and I didn't realize at the time because I hadn't, you know, and I just was looking at the sparkling water and I didn't realize at the time because I hadn't really cultivated any spiritual practice at this point. My spiritual practice was probably going to church a couple times a year with family, and so what I didn't realize was happening in that moment is, as I was looking at the water that was sparkling over, like on the horizon, I was actually going into a state of meditation, right, um, and in that state, in that, that, that where my mind, when, once my mind became clear and I was just focusing on the sparkling of the water, I heard a voice say to me there's so much more for you out there. You just have to be willing to like go for it. And I remember I turned around and I'm like looking, and I'm looking this way and I'm looking that way, and I'm like there's nobody around me. Who the fuck said that. I'm like. Now I've like convinced myself that I'm hearing voices, right, and that was shortly.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:That was like maybe a few months before I finally made the decision to leave and years before I finally became, before I finally let go of the shame of the betrayal and how long I stayed after I realized what was going on. And so you know all that to say. There is a there might be so much available for you out there. You know, if you just if you can just look at your, you know this experience as something to wake you up, something to how you've been betraying yourself, to wake you up to the potential of who you could be and what you could become if you stop betraying yourself and start putting all that energy and focus back onto you instead of making this relationship the central focus, whatever that looks like, if that looks like leaving, if it looks like staying to work on it but continuing to make space for yourself in the connection and letting it, letting it, letting the period that you stayed in this connection, trying to make it work, let it mean nothing more than you stayed as long as you needed to in order for all this internal shifting and transforming to take place so that you can fully step into and embody this next level version of yourself, or at least learn the fundamental skills that you would need to step into and embody the next level version of yourself. Then the shame just dissipates Because I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I have no doubt, I have no shame.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:I stayed as long as I needed to to come into the awareness of why this betrayal happened, how it was serving me in a powerful way, why I needed to stay as long as I did and why I left at the perfect time, when the strengths and the skills and the abilities that I needed to cultivate in order to be successful in the next chapter in my life, that's when I left and when I was unwavering in my decision, even though there was some insecurity, even though it was hard, even though there was fear. I knew I made the right decision and I was unwavering in that and there was no going back and there was no regret. And there was no, there was none of that. You know, I was solid in my decision, even though it felt hard, even though it was scary, even though it was uncertain. So, and with that, you know, the shame fell away. The shame fell away because there was a reason that the betrayal happened. There was a reason that the betrayal happened. There was a reason that I stayed as long as I did and that I left when I did. You know, everything happened at the right time.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:The reason where shame comes in is that we have all these narratives, all these voices in our head telling us that it's somehow the betrayal was somehow our fault, that somehow we weren't enough and that's why the betrayal happened, which is a bunch of BS, and you know, we make it mean something about ourselves, and then we make it mean something about ourselves that we've stayed. You know, when it's not. It's not a black and white issue, it's not. I can tell you right now. You know, for every woman that's out there saying I don't know why, women would say in situations where they were being cheated on, or but you know what, until you're in it, you can't cause.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:I used to say that, you know, but until you're in it, you the way, it the way, like the, the, the, the, the. What's it called? The circus of thoughts that go on in your mind of you're not good enough, you're not worthy, you failed at this, you didn't do that, you weren't sexy enough, you weren't pretty enough, you weren't this enough, you were all these things kind of going through your head. And then did he, didn't he like? If there's no, like real, concrete proof, oh my God, like you can drive yourself mental, you know, um, and so I can tell you right now, like, of all the clients that I've worked with, nine out of 10 of them experienced some form of betrayal that, and they did not leave, either it was ongoing, or it was a one-time thing, or whatever. You know, it is a real thing.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:We don't always society tells us betrayal happens, we close the door, we leave, yeah, and a lot of times, if the betrayal happens and it's, it's, it's done in a way that that is, you know, people aren't taking accountability for it. They're not taking accountability, they're not taking the responsibility to do the work to bring the, to heal the relationship and bring wholeness and a healthy connection back in the relationship, then, yeah, that is the right thing to do. But there's so many other layers like there's so many. There's so much nuance in that, in that there's different types of betrayal, there's different ways people deal with betrayal, there's different ways we communicate about betrayal. So to say that there's one cut and dry solution.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:We're human, we're human, we're complex. We go through things, we go through feelings, we have doubts, we have fears, and you know we have convenient truths, the things that we want, or not even truths, convenient stories that we want to be true, that aren't. And so you know there's so much that comes into the into, into into the. You know the, the screenplay. When we're dealing with a betrayal plot, right, wounds, fears, limiting beliefs, you know everything comes to the table, right, and everything is literally ignited with this one event, right. So if we can detach from what everyone else says we should be doing when we're betrayed, right. If we can detach from all of that, if we can detach from the rules, if we can detach from the judgments, if we can detach from all of it and just recognize it for what it is. It is an experience that we are moving through that we've both so contracted to move through, so that we can awaken to a different version of ourselves and we can awaken to the ways that we were betraying ourselves. We can awaken to how powerful we are when we stop betraying ourselves and we can awaken to the lessons that we need to learn and embody in order to move forward.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:The shame literally starts to like disappear and what's left is nothing more than another spiritual assignment helping you to evolve and grow in this life. Right, and how you move forward is entirely unique to you and your relationship and the decisions that you make and what feels right for you and how you're both moving through this together. Right, if you are. And again go back to that episode should I stay or should I go? If you're wondering whether or not your connection is worth salvaging, I've given you some concrete, based on my personal experience, concrete guidelines when to stay and when to not stay after betrayal, so that you can make an aligned decision. And again, when you're ready and you will know when you're ready because, like I said, it will feel more uncomfortable staying than leaving and that's how I knew and with that, like, literally, the betrayal just dissolves away.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:If I keep coming back to that story or that belief that this happened for me. This was awakening me, this was preparing me, this was strengthening me for this next part of my journey. Then there's no more shame to be held for it, because I can see all the ways that it healed me and I can see all the ways that it transformed me. And if there were some self-doubts there and if I did settle or if I did um, you know, stay longer than I would have wanted myself to stay, I know that it's because it brought up so many deep wounds and insecurities within myself, all of which got to heal as a result of this experience, and that is how the shame dissipated. So hopefully that gives you some comfort. If you can look back on why it happened and how it was transforming you and what it was helping you to become and why, that in itself will help to dissipate a lot of that shame that you might be feeling. So that is all for today.
MARIA @THEFEMMECAST:You guys Leave me a note, but wherever you're seeing this episode, if you're seeing it in social media, if you've gotten it in your emails, hit that reply button. Let me know what resonates for you. You can send me a DM at TheFemCast on Instagram. I would love to see you in our masterclass on September 15th. It's free. It's 90-minute healing and activation that is going to help you move through and rise through the pain of betrayal so that you can embody this next level version of yourself that the betrayal is literally inviting you to become Okay. That is all for now, you guys. Until next time, massive love.
