From Wounds to Wisdom (Previously the Mental-Hell Podcast)

FWTW S3E06 | How She Survived 4 Cancers—and Chose Joy Anyway: Dianne Callahan Story

• Barbie Moreno

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What do you do when life keeps breaking you open?

In this soul-stirring episode of From Wounds to Wisdom, Barbie Moreno sits down with Dianne Callahan—a four-time cancer survivor and the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s 2021 Woman of the Year All-Star. But cancer isn’t the whole story. Dianne opens up about the unspoken wounds—rape, body shame, emotional abuse, and the deeper healing that came not from surviving, but from learning to love herself back to life.


This is a conversation for every woman who’s been burned through by life… and is ready to rise.


🔔 Subscribe for more trauma-informed healing, nervous system wisdom, and soul-aligned truth.


👇 Chapters:

– Intro: Forged by Fire, Bigger Heart

– When Cancer Isn’t the Worst Thing You Survive

– The Body Shame That Lingers After Trauma

– Abuse, Worthiness, and Awakening

– The Turning Point: Choosing to Live

– How Joy Became Her Healing Practice

– Writing a New Story: Helping Others Heal


🎧 Keywords:

cancer survivor story, emotional healing, trauma recovery, abuse survival, worthiness, somatic healing, nervous system, healing after trauma, women’s empowerment, healing podcast, Barbie Moreno

Guest Info:

Linkedin Dianne Callahan
Instagram @dianne_callahan_speaker
Amazon Books Dianne Callahan


Like, subscribe, and keep the conversation going.
Site barbiemoreno.com
IG @barbiespeaker
From Wounds to Wisdom Podcast

Season 2
Unraveling the Mind: From Mental Struggles to Inner Strength.

SPEAKER_00:

After four battles with cancer and one unbreakable spirit, Diane Callahan was forged by fire and came out with a bigger heart. Her story isn't about what tried to destroy her, it's about what awakened in her because of it. Let's dive in.

SPEAKER_01:

Sometimes I tell people I've survived cancer four times, and they're like, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. And I'm like, I'm not, I'm I'm pretty blessed and lucky. And next thing I know, he had me down on the bed with his hands around my throat, and I had to yell out for help. And I held it up to my head. And I just looked at myself and I'm like, why not? This is never gonna get better. And he said, When God gives you a gift, you don't give it back.

SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to the From Wounds to Wisdom podcast. This is your host, Barbie Marino. And today I have Diane Callahan, who is a four-time cancer survivor and was named 2021 Woman of the Year All-Star by the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Diane encourages people to live urgently today and every day. Welcome.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00:

So grateful to have you on our show. One, I love your positivity. And so we obviously, the show is from wounds to wisdom. And so could you share with us a four-time cancer survivor? Crazy.

SPEAKER_01:

Crazy, yes. Sometimes I tell people I've survived cancer four times, and they're like, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. And I'm like, I'm not, I'm I'm pretty blessed and lucky. It's funny how life can change when you hear the words unexpectedly, it usually is. You know, you have stage four aggressive blood cancer, and then later find out that your oncologist team was saying to your family, we're gonna do the best that we can, but we don't know what's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_00:

And stage four is basically terminal, right? Well, there's no stage five. Right. Yeah, basically terminal, unless it goes into remission. Can you tell us what kind of cancers you have?

SPEAKER_01:

So almost 18 years ago now, um, my cancer versory is in July. So it's of 2007. So that's when I started to get all these weird symptoms and weird pain in different places, and ended up, you know, going to the ER and going to the hospital and having all these tests done. So what they found was that I had basically two forms of aggressive non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, which is blood cancer. And it was one type was called follicular, which is pretty common, and then the other type was diffuse large B cell. And basically what had happened was the follicular had morphed, transformed into this very aggressive um type of cancer that was trying to kill me.

SPEAKER_00:

What happens to your mindset, your brain, your emotions? Like what happens when you find this out? What went through you?

SPEAKER_01:

For me, it's a little hard to say because I was on a lot of morphine because I was in so much pain. Because what was happening was lymphoma happens in your bone marrow, and your bone marrow is inside all of your bones, right? And the bone marrow is is what makes your white cells, your red cells, your platelets. And it was basically eating away at the inside of my inside of my bones. So I was in so much pain that I was on a lot of morphine. And um I think my my thought process was like, okay, well, thank God. Now we know what it is. We know that we can get busy getting on with it. It didn't even cross my mind. I know it sounded obviously it's serious, but nobody told me exactly how serious it was. And so I just thought, okay, let's get to finishing this, let's get to treatment and get on with it.

SPEAKER_00:

That type of person who is like, okay, I know I've got an issue. I'm gonna power through it, we're gonna fix it. This comes from a strong person. Usually it comes through somebody who has experienced things in their childhood that would make them push through life, right? Is that you?

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, I would I would definitely say yes. Oh, and by the way, the other cancer. So I had three fights with that blood cancer. And then once that was in remission, almost three years ago, I got to have breast cancer too. So I guess I'm kind of good at it. Um, I often tell people that the cancer is not the hardest part of my life's journey. It's not the hardest thing I've ever gone through. And they just look at me like that, it sounds terrible. What could be worse? And I'm like, um, well, unfortunately, I have a list. So I was always the the the bigger girl, the heavier girl. And I I got bullied and teased sometimes about it, but I had always just sort of set my mind that I'm just gonna dress nicely and go out for things and be on teams and do theater, and I'm just gonna show the world that a slightly bigger girl has just as much fun as these little size five girls. There's not a line of demarcation, right? And I think I get that mindset from my mom because she's just like me. She looks for the positive. She grew up in the depression, so she's had some hard stuff. That was a little bit hard. Then my house burned down. Our whole neighborhood burned down in the panorama fire in San Bernardino. I was in high school. And oh my God, I had clothes in my closet that still had tags on them.

SPEAKER_00:

You poor thing.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, that was back when you would go uh back to school shopping and you were like getting all of your fall and winter clothes, but of course it was September and it was still like 110 degrees outside. So you had all this great clothes that you're gonna be able to wear at some point when it cools down. So all these clothes went to close heaven um and without ever being worn. So that was a toughie, but then again, you know, it's just stuff. Although we did lose our little dog, Happy, and she died in the fire. The next year, something pretty tough happened. I was raped. And I usually call it date rape, although the date part was so pitiful. I shouldn't even use that word. What happened was I was working, my best friend's mom had a pizza place. So I was working at the pizza place, and uh, this guy, a couple of years older than me, I went to high school with, came in, and he's cute and popular and all this stuff. And um we get to talking and he says, Hey, you want to go do something after you get off work? And I'm like, Yeah, okay. You know, I'm thinking me. That should have been the first sign, right? I mean, that's not really a date, that's just nothing else to do later that night. But I was pretty innocent back in those days, and so he picked me up and basically we drove around for an hour or two, just kind of doing nothing. And then he parked his car in the middle of a field and raped me. And I was saying no and yelling and crying, and he was putting his hand over my mouth and saying, Stop it. And um, I couldn't stop it. So um I held that inside of me for a long time. I was a virgin at the time. And um, I figured it was my own dumb fault. Like, why would a guy like that want to be with me or want to take me on a date? I was so stupid to believe it. It was really my fault, which is of course what we do, right? Right. Because we want to feel like we could have had some control over that whole situation if we had just thought about it differently. As much as I put on the happy face, almost nobody knew about it. My best friend knew, but nobody knew because I wasn't going to tell my family because I had two brothers. I didn't want them in prison. Um, I just went on about my life not recognizing the damage that had been done to my sense of worth. And your sense of safety too, right?

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

I put myself in a lot of unsafe situations, interestingly enough, because after the fire, I remember doing dumbass things like walking across a busy street thinking, my house burned down. I'm sure nothing else is going to happen to me, you know. And so I was still sort of in this mindset, and then this rape happened. And so then I was like, well, you know, virginity's gone. I guess I should just do whatever. Partied a lot, put myself into a lot of um unsafe situations that luckily I must have a very busy guardian angel to keep me from really getting jacked up, right? I I didn't really think about it very much until I was well into my first marriage and made some connections.

SPEAKER_00:

What did your first marriage bring that connection for you?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, what I'm about to say is the first part of what I'm about to say is nothing against uh the guy I married. Um, but when you have been put in that mental position of you don't really have that much worth, and you know, you're so stupid. So you don't really value yourself either. And you see that the world doesn't value you that much in the womanly sense. So, like in my career sense, I was great. I could I got my degree, I was doing great in my career, but in the sense of being a woman in this world, right? So I should never have married him. And everybody knew I shouldn't have married him, even he knew. One time he said to me, he threw a brick at my foot and he said, you know, you shouldn't marry me. But I think that there was a part of me that felt like, well, this is probably the best that I can do. And yeah, and he was someone who didn't have education and um lots of things that we were very different. But there he but he was a lot of fun and we did a lot of fun things. So um we got married and I was you know very hopeful. Like I knew he didn't have a good family situation, and I did.

SPEAKER_00:

And I thought that maybe sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you, but it's just like, yes, this is what we do, right? We're gonna fix them.

SPEAKER_01:

Just be helpful, right? Like be generous. In my mind, I was like being generous. Like I know I I I I have the capacity and I was making a lot more money, so I was being generous. Um, I have this great family that he could be part of. I was being generous. I liked to think of myself as a generous person, right? Who could share the good things in my life that would help him or whomever. Um, and so, you know, it's really easy to kind of like talk it through in your head and then to, you know, I thought the great thing was, you know, long past. And since I had already figured out it was my fault and I should have done it differently, you know, I could move past. Women are told a story that our value is how we look. Our value is being able to get a man, right, you know, to get married and everything and our really our most important value. There's some other good things we might could do. We could make cookies or have a job, but I mean, really, the value in us is how we look.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And what we can do with that. But he was told a story too, um, by society and actually explicitly by both of his parents, that fat women are useless losers. Not only are they unattractive, but they're an embarrassment. You know, that's how his dad was very specific. And that's how his mom, she got her jaws wired shut so she would lose weight, and then she would go to the bars and drink till she passed out. My husband, as a young person, had to have wire cutters so she could cut her mouth open so she didn't choke on her own vomit by trying to lose weight.

SPEAKER_00:

How traumatic?

SPEAKER_01:

Traumatic stuff. In his worldview, that he was told a real man has a hot woman on the back of his motorcycle. You know, he didn't fall into the trap of like overdrinking or things like that, but he understood fully that a hot woman was what a real man paraded around.

SPEAKER_00:

So you think his anger was being taken out on you because he feels like he wasn't a real man because he didn't marry this thin model.

SPEAKER_01:

It's quite possible. Also, he had trouble keeping a job, and I always made good money. And I never held that in any weird way. I just had one bank account. You know, he would do things like one time I looked at our bank account, it was like missing money. Turns out he had been making like 900, you know, like sex calls. And so I called him, I'm like, you know, what the heck? And he said, Well, if you don't want me to have to make those calls, you know what you need to do. If you look better, maybe I wouldn't need to make those calls.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So it always kind of turned back on me.

SPEAKER_00:

You know the thing that I find um interesting about your story? Well, one I can relate because I grew up very overweight myself and have struggled with my weight most of my life, and therefore my um self-worth, because like you said, um, the world treats women basically the first thing they do is look at you and decide whether you're a slob because you're overweight or if you're worthy because you're attractive, right? Um and that hasn't changed. In fact, I feel like it's gotten significantly worse with all the social media and stuff. We have all of these young, very young girls who are anorexic, bulimic, boys as well, um, because there's just this stigma on your size of your body and your beauty is your value. And you would think after all of these years that we would teach differently, but it hasn't changed.

SPEAKER_01:

I think you're right. I mean, I look at my niece and her strength and her beauty, and I look at people in her uh generation, she's in her early 20s, and I think for some it has changed a little bit, or maybe it's been easier to um disregard. We do have more variety in images that we see of different sizes or different ethnicities and things like that, and maybe with some of the transgenderism and stuff, we've got some ability to be a little more open, um, but only segments of our society can do that. Other segments of our society are completely pissed and they're getting worse about it, right?

SPEAKER_00:

There's a lot of mental health issues because of it. Yes, yes, yes. There's a lot of depression and anxiety, and you know, and eating disorders are mental health issues people don't seem to understand too. Yeah. Talk to me about going from a mindset of where you don't feel worthy. You married a man who basically showed you what you felt like your worth was to the human being that you are now.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, let me just take you down to the lowest moment before we rise up. Um it came down to a day that I'll never forget. It was a Sunday afternoon, beautiful day. We lived in the Bay Area. And at the time, his father had left a handgun at our house. I don't know why. We had never had guns in our home before, but I knew it was there. It was in, you know, the bedside table. Um I got it and I went into our bathroom and locked the door, and I stood in front of this giant mirror and I held it up to my head. And I just looked at myself and I'm like, why not? This is never gonna get better. And what I was experiencing too is I was trying to lose weight, trying. You know, I was going to jazz or size. I was, you know, trying to do things. And what I think what I realized was that so I'm looking in the mirror and jazz or size, like, you know, doing my thing, and I'm yelling at myself in my head, like, see, you can barely lift your legs. You're such a fat gal. Now I look back at it and I think how mean I was to myself. I've learned so much about that too. Like, you cannot make positive changes in your life from a negative worldview or from a hating yourself worldview. It can't happen. It won't happen.

SPEAKER_00:

What kept you from knowing yourself?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, one voice was in my head saying, do it. He deserves it. Just do it. And um, but then another little boy, I probably had the angels on my shoulder. Another little voice was like, but and this shaky little voice, but what about your parents? What about your family? And then I was like, Oh my, and then I put it down. I was like, I can't do this to them. No, I didn't want them to know what was going on. They everybody was here in Southern California. I was up in the Bay Area. They didn't really know a lot about how it was. And I, you know, I had this idea that, like, well, if he was abusive, if he was abusive, you know, if he hit me, that would be it. I would, there you go. You know, there's the line of demarcation. I would leave because that's how that goes, right? So he would shove me up against a wall. He would, you know, like I said, he threw a brook, uh, a brick at my feet. Um, you know, he would do all these things and say these most hellacious things. I'm embarrassed to be seen with you. And so I stayed thinking, like, let's just keep working on this. Or I don't know what I mean. We weren't working on it because there wasn't any work to be done, really. He was like, You're fat and you deserve to be talked to like this. There's something that's that I read recently that says you cannot talk through a problem and come to a um a good outcome unless both people think there's a problem. When I speak to audiences and stuff, and I tell the story, I tell them, you know, I'd like to say that I put that gun down and grab my suitcase and started packing to get out of there that day. And they all like, yeah. And I'm like, no, no, no. I would like to say that. But that only happens in the movies.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

I mean, in real life, it's hard. You live in this limbo of, is it bad enough to go? Is it good enough to stay? Is this what I deserve? Is this what I should do? You know, I'm a Christian and um I went to a prayer break breakfast, like a Good Friday breakfast one time, huge auditorium of people. And this pastor, you know, was talking about he had cheated, but they worked together and God helped him fix their marriage and everything. And so afterwards, I went up to the pastor and I said, So here's what's going on. I mean, my husband is really mean to me and says terrible things because he wants, you know, like a hot wife, he wants a skinny wife. And the pastor looked me straight in the eyes and said, and so why don't you give him what he wants? Why won't you do that as a wife? Yeah. Wow. So you see, I got some additional messaging, you know?

SPEAKER_00:

Yep. Wow. Now when you look back on that, I mean, wow, right? That's all you can really say. Like, how could you possibly say that to somebody? Right.

SPEAKER_01:

It's like it's so, it's so I hate to say this, but it's so white Christian, nationalist patriarchy, blah. Yeah. I mean, you know, because why don't you give your husband what he wants? He deserves to have what he wants. And I'm like, but but but does he deserve to be so mean to me? And he's like, Well, you know what you need to do. And that's what John had said to me. Oh, sorry, that's his name, had said to me before. Well, you know what you need to do. And I'm like, Oh, well, okay, now I've heard it from a pastor. Right. Yeah, somebody that you look up to. This is a public forum, and I don't really like to talk about this publicly, but I'm going to because I believe it's important. I had internalized so much of those messages. And as things were getting worse and worse between us, and just like when we were staying at my parents, he'd be gone like five nights, six nights out of seven, no idea where he was, no communication. And so I went, I was out of town at a conference, and I thought, well, let me just do some data testing of these things he's told me that are, you know, human absolutes, that nobody, no man in his right mind would be attracted to me, right? I met someone who was attracted to me, and we had a little fling. And so I cheated, but I felt like I needed to find out if that was for sure true or maybe not true. I don't like to talk about it because it's weak. I wish I could have just looked at my first husband and said, You don't treat me right. I deserve to be treated better. So I'm gonna move on from this, and that would have been in strength. But what I did was I felt weak. I think it needed to happen, right? And I guess he had a way of um knowing like that who I was talking to on my cell phone and stuff. And so this guy that I had met, he had stayed in touch. We did we lived on opposite sides of the country. It wasn't like gonna be any kind of love fest or anything, but you know, we stayed a little bit in contact. And um, on this particular afternoon, I came home and I had talked to this guy when I was, I was, it was my dad's birthday, and I was out running an errand, like getting the ice or the cake or I don't even know, something. And I get back and my husband is there, and he said, Get in here to our room, right? And I'm like, What? And he had my phone and he said, I know that you've been cheating. And he said, You're gonna go out there and tell your family that you're a cheating whore. And I'm like, I am not going to do that. Um, it's my dad's birthday. You know, I'm not stop it, just stop it. And next thing I know, he had me down on the bed with his hands around my throat, and I had to yell out for help. And my brothers came in and kicked him out of the house, and that was the end when he finally endangered me physically.

SPEAKER_00:

So the mental abuse wasn't enough, it had to be physical.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I guess so, right?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Do you think that if you were not raped, that you would have picked a different partner? Do you think that like the rape itself violated you? Because it sounds like you had a decent upbringing. Yeah, you were overweight, whatever, right? But that rape itself switched something in your mind where your value then completely depleted. And that you then picked people who showed you that value?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, because it's so weirdly subliminal. You know, I had so many great things in my life. I had this great family, great upbringing, you know, the safe, wonderful home, uh, good education, good career, great friends. I mean, really nothing to cry about, right? So you tell yourself, I have everything good. I mean, this one thing happened, but uh, you know, get over it.

SPEAKER_00:

And you succeeded, quote unquote succeeded, in every aspect of your life except for that relationship part of with that partner, right? Like so when you draw the correlation, you would have to say, at some point, if you can do well at work, if you know if you can do all of these things, but the one point in your life that you pick, because it's subliminal, we pick it, right? The one where we pick is where the worthiness of I caused my rape and I'm to blame for it. And then afterwards I decided, like, you know, I wasn't going to, I wasn't gonna be choosy about who I was with, right? Then what I deserve is less.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. And it took me a really long time. I I'm only talking about all of these things over maybe the last two years.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. And I just turned 60. So it took me a really long time, and the the rape happened when I was 17.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

But being able to intellectually, you know, and emotionally and spiritually put all these things together has slowly been happening for me, right? You know, you asked me like what I did or how I came to be the woman that I am now, right, which is the part I love to talk about, right? You know, I knew gut, my soul actually knew that nobody should be talking to me like that, nobody should touch me without my permission. You know, I knew these things and yet allowed them, right? And stayed and kept allowing it. But I shudder to think, you know, for some woman going through something very similar, who maybe didn't have that really solid upbringing, right? Loving, you know, faith-filled, kind upbringing, gasping for air because you have nothing to hold on to, right? You're drowning in the ugliness. So I I know I'm blessed. And so I was able to what I like to say is I, you know, that day when I put the gun down, I started really thinking about confidence, self-love, human worthiness, just because we're human, just because we're God's creation. I stopped um putting certain things into my um my soul nutrition, I like to say, like I stopped reading um serial, like true crime serial killer books and just all this deep, ugly darkness that I would bring into my life. So I stopped uh doing some of those things. I started replacing those things with um all the scientific work about like positive psychology. So I started to tag into some of that stuff and what has been scientifically proven to bring joy into our lives and to bring happiness, which is you know, having deep connected, trusting relationships, friendships. Um I dove even further into that and um, you know, faith and having a gratitude practice and recognizing all the good things that are that are in life and and the blessings that I've been given. And so um, and it's not toxic posity, it's not like I don't still feel the scars from all that stuff, but you can choose to bring joyful things into your life and to look for them. And when you look for them and you read about them or you talk to people, um, what you're doing is you're confirming that you are worthy of experiencing joy, that joy is in this world and you are worthy of experiencing it. It was there was no curriculum set out, right? There's nothing like that. But I just kept thinking, keep finding the joy and learn to recognize that multiple things can be true at the same time.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

Um, I could be in an emotionally abusive marriage, but still be a joyful human that can pour love out on other people. I could be heartbroken, but still see the sunrise and think it's a good thing. That's what I started to do. I just started to replace darkness with lightness and let that work inside of me. And um, so then that day came that the marriage ended, and and that was in 2005. Two years after that marriage ended, I knew that I still believed in love. I knew that there was good love, loving love, right, in this world. And I still wanted that. So I was on match.com. I would go on a date every Thursday night, whether I wanted to or not. And mostly I didn't want to, but I thought, well, the way I approach things is when I know there's something I want, whether it's a degree, it's a job, it's a whatever, I figure out what the plan is, and then I worked the plan. So for me, these crazy dates with a lot of losers was the plan, right? So God bless them. I mean, not all of them were a lot of them were. Okay, let me just say that.

SPEAKER_00:

Let's be honest.

SPEAKER_01:

I mean, they were I I let's not be, I shouldn't say losers, not a match. How about that?

SPEAKER_00:

For many, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And then I met this guy on match.com and we started, you know, emailing each other and stuff. And funny enough, his marriage, his long-term marriage, had ended in 2005 as well. And so he had said he had two kids. And and what I didn't share with you, um, during my first marriage, I was pregnant twice and lost both those babies. I'm absolutely positive that it was God's gift to me to not have babies in that marriage, even though it's sad, it's still, you know, two things can be true at the same time. This gentleman that I met um had two kids, and he said he was looking for someone to have fun with and to help them finish raising his two kids. Is there like an online application for that? Because that sounds great. And so we started dating, and it was less than three months later when I ended up in the hospital finding out I had stage four blood cancer. He would come see me every night on his way home from work. And the night we finally had the diagnosis, they already had me on chemo and everything. And I was having a bad reaction to the chemo. And when that got figured out, I said, Look, you should run. You need to go find someone who can make those promises and be there to have fun with and help raise your kids because I cannot promise anything right now, and you are off the hook, nobody will hold it against you, you know. See ya. And he said, When God gives you a gift, you don't give it back. And then he said, I already know I want to spend the rest of my life taking care of you. So will you marry me? Right there at the Kaiser Resort and Spa. Kaiser Resort and Spa. He were here, he would say, But she was on a lot of morphine. I didn't know she would remember. So I remembered. And and if I hadn't been super sick and it had only been three months, I would have been like, Oh, another freak, right? I mean, I remember before I got sick when we were when we were dating, he said to me, Look, I will always treat you with kindness, I will always treat you with respect, and I will always treat you with love. I was like, Um, you know what? That's great. Thanks. You know, I'm gonna um I got some things to do, so I'm gonna go. And I just walked out. I cannot handle that.

SPEAKER_00:

You can't absorb it because it's not what you're used to.

SPEAKER_01:

They say um the whole idea about healing is not so that you can have another relationship, it's so that you can accept love. It's not so you can go on to love someone else, it's so that you're able to accept love.

SPEAKER_00:

Right, you can receive it.

SPEAKER_01:

We got married in 2008. So, what is that 16 years now?

SPEAKER_00:

And 17, 17. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. We did finish raising those two kids, and they did get great educations in Virginia with his wife and their my granddaughter. The big dream of my life was to have a grandchild. And the other has a master's and is working in Washington State. So I sit here in my life now, it's so full of joy and blessing and growth, hard earned growth. And all that, uh, so much of this growth has happened, you know, within this marriage, even right. We have a lovely marriage and there's nothing like that. But there's been a couple of times where I finally had to say, and we um like because he would like maybe drop the F bomb and kind of be mad if something was going wrong. And I would say, you know what? I get that. But I can't be in a marriage like that. I can't have yelling. And because as soon as you do that, I shut down and it makes me scared and I want to leave. So I know I still need to grow, but I need to not have that. You need to feel safe. Yeah, because I need to feel safe. And he has been so great about it, right? He understands it. And I've been so proud of myself to be able to say that. Because basically what you're saying is I need a marriage where I am safe and that makes me feel not safe. And so if that continues, I can't continue. I mean that's what you're saying, right?

SPEAKER_00:

It's a well and if you contrast it with your previous marriage when somebody is telling you things that the your previous marriage was telling you and you didn't say that's not okay. So the growth shows in even that because you now have a good husband and a supportive husband, a loving husband who's not doing all these things to you. Also though, the environment allows you to feel safe to say these things. Yes?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. You know, all the personal development work I've done about a lot of the work is what goes on in your head. And that negative self-talk that we learn from babies all the storytelling, all this stuff from whatever our our environment is, we have to fight that every hour of our life. I call it CPR for my thoughts. You have to catch it because so often we're just like I'm so dumb and you don't even catch it what you're saying. So you have to catch it you have to push it away you have to say I don't believe that I don't have time for this and then you have to rephrase it and reclaim it.

SPEAKER_00:

You have to, you know, in my course I teach about building that neuropathway right you have to rewire your brain because you can it's neuroplasticity. You can rewire your brain but it does take effort and it takes it and it takes a huge commitment. It does.

SPEAKER_01:

It's not a one time thing.

SPEAKER_00:

No, it's not a you know uh I go do this and all of a sudden my brain is rewired right there's a lot of people and I'm not against any of the stuff but there's you know ayahuasca mushrooms ketamine all of these different things that you know biologically they do some things but you have to put in the effort and the work you can't just go and do these things and then think that you're going to be fixed. Let's be honest. Right. It's a lot of work it's a lot of work daily and it's a commitment for the rest of your life.

SPEAKER_01:

You don't get a graduation you don't get a you know a diploma or an award or anything like that. But what you do get is you get notices that you're on the right path. Right. So you might recognize that the you that you are today is handling something so much better than the you were 10 or 20 years ago or even two years ago. You might for instance almost three years ago when I was sitting in my surgeon's off at office after I found out I had breast cancer I was like okay well I'm going to be 60 pretty soon. So so I so I'll go for the two 30 year old perk perky boobies, right? I'm like, I'm here for the perky boobies. And she said she went like this she's like oh and I'm like what oh well what let's talk about the perky boobies. And she said um you're not a candidate for reconstruction. And I said why not? And she said well because of all of your cancer treatment you know I'm immune suppressed. So she said so putting something foreign in your body is very dangerous.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

And I have damaged lungs from my parting gifts right and she goes and honestly I don't think there's a plastic surgeon who would touch you with a 10 foot pool. They wouldn't want you to be on their table for that many hours with multiple surgeries to reconstruct. And so I remember sitting there my husband was there and I felt a tear come out just one and I was like no perky boobies. And then she said but we have these great support groups because women you know they feel like they lose their um femininity or their womanhood and you know so we have all this help and everything. And I said you wait I said you know I'm really glad that you have all those groups I said but I'm not I'm gonna be fine. You know what I don't need boobs to be happy to be a woman right I'm good. You know after the surgery and after everything I've never looked back. It was that moment that was like accepting the award right because I was like holy crap. I mean I had 44 double D's I mean they were like a huge aspect of who I was as a human being right and to be like I don't need them. Okay we're gonna go on and not have these I thought this is a whole different me. This is a whole different way of being that was a great moment. And so what I encourage people is keep doing the work keep doing keep reading the good stuff keep staying away from the people who bring you down stay with the people that bring you up and make you feel happy and make you feel like you're in on a sunny day and keep changing those thoughts in your head. And as you do it builds and builds and builds this Diane right here who's written these books and does this speaking and coaching 25 years of work of growth of joy.

SPEAKER_00:

Tell us about your books because what we consume is who we are food and books right so tell us about the books so that people can consume something positive.

SPEAKER_01:

This is my first book it's lighthearted life and it says simple strategies to live a joy filled life even in the stormiest times. And so I have coloring pages in there I have journaling pages in there. And this is a lot of the research that I was doing in those earlier days reading all the different studies about how we can become happier like we can increase our happiness fitness how we can get more joy in our life how we can experience the art and science of gratitude and all of that is in here. And then I have another one that I'm super proud of. And this one I'm one of 30 authors this is called Becoming Happy 30 ways to heal your mind, body and soul. I was selected to be the first chapter which made me really happy yes and I talk about that happiness is a practice and I actually kind of conflate happiness with confidence because all the research talks about how they go hand in hand, right? It's hard to be genuinely joyfully happy if we don't have that self-worth and self-value and that confidence that we are worthy children of God, right? But we're worthy just because we're here, because we were born. And so in this book, in that chapter, I actually write about that day that I held the gun to my head and I write about where I was 25 years ago and what I know now and what I've been doing to get to this place where I can actually help other people.

SPEAKER_00:

And if that mess if that message resonates with anybody we will have your contact information your website um your book information because your joy is a gift to the world.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh thank you. I'm nothing special you know I mean like and I tell I say that in my talks I'm like if I can do it right like reading and looking for the good there's so many more ways to do it. Now they didn't have coaches 25 years there's no coaching. No there's no the the the those books weren't even written yet you know all the stuff that we have access to now all the truths about the value that we each hold just because we were born here. Yep. You know it's that little seed we're here today and we're valuable.

SPEAKER_00:

Simply because you exist. Thank you for sharing your story with us from Wounds to Wisdom and we value you very much and we're grateful that you decided to take your journey and share it with the world so that we can all know our worth because of people like you and hopefully me and what we share.

SPEAKER_01:

That's our job. I'm I'm blessed. Thank you so much for asking me to be on the show.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely so if anybody's looking to contact Diane if her story resonates with you if you feel like she can help you make a change in your life please reach out. As you can see she's full of great messages and we thank you again. If this story spoke to you let's keep the healing going visit BarbieMoreno.com for my online course awakening your worth in healing energy sessions one on one coaching and your free healing guide. Your next step is waiting.

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Barbie Moreno

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