Aging with Purpose and Passion

Turning Sensitivity Into Power After 50

• Beverley Glazer • Episode 143

Share episode

She fled Soviet Russia with three suitcases and $250—but Diana Esther Berschader’s greatest journey wasn’t across borders, it was into her own heart. In this episode, she shares how to transform pressure into brilliance, reclaim your voice, and discover The Diamond Within—where emotional sensitivity becomes strength and midlife reinvention becomes possible at any age.

Diana Esther Berschader's journey from Soviet oppression to spiritural empowerment is a blueprint for midlife reinvention and women's transformation after 50. 

Growing up Jewish in Cold War Russia, Diana’s childhood dreams were crushed—first by illness, then by anti-Semitism that barred her from medical school. But during a harrowing illness, she heard her first “inner whisper”—a voice of courage that became her lifelong companion. That whisper guided her family as they fled the Soviet Union with 48 hours’ notice, just three suitcases.

Through refugee camps in Austria and Italy, and eventually life in Australia and beyond, Diana learned this truth: the real journey isn't across borders, it's into your own heart. 

Now the creator of The Diamond Within, Diana teaches that—like carbon under pressure becoming a diamond—we too can transform challenges into brilliance. For women over 50, her message is clear: after decades of prioritizing others, it’s time to honor your own dreams.

In this episode, you’ll hear how to see emotional sensitivity as strength, practice heart-centered living, trust your inner wisdom, and turn trauma into resilience. Diana’s story is both inspiring and practical—a call to reclaim your voice and embrace the extraordinary life you deserve.

Resources & Links - 

For similar episodes on body wisdom, check out episodes 110 and 133 of Aging with Purpose and Passion. 

And if you're a caregiver navigating the challenges of caring for a loved one with dementia, I highly recommend that you listen to Fading Memories. This is a podcast that will give you insights and guidance on communicating, managing stress, navigating grief and loss and prioritizing the wellbeing of both caregivers and those they love.

Diana Esther Berschader – Founder of The Diamond Within
📧 Email: diana.berschader@gmail.com
🌐 Website
📸 Instagram
💼 LinkedIn
▶️ YouTube Channel

Beverley Glazer – Transformation Coach & Host of Aging with Purpose and Passion
📧 Email: Bev@reinventImpossible.com
🌐 Website
💼 LinkedIn
📘 Facebook
👥 Women Over 50 Rock Group
📸 Instagram

Send us a text

🎁 BONUS: Take your first step to clarity, courage and momentum. Your free checklist: → From Stuck to Unstoppable – is here.
https://reinvent-impossible.aweb.page/from-stuck-to-unstoppable

Have feedback or a powerful story that's worth telling? Contact us at info@Reinventimpossible.com

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Aging with Purpose and Passion, the podcast designed to inspire your greatness and thrive through life. Get ready to conquer your fears. Here's your host psychotherapist, coach and empowerment expert, Beverley Glazer.

Beverley Glazer:

Have you ever been told that you're just too sensitive, too emotional or that you're just too much? Welcome to Aging with Purpose and Passion, the podcast for women over 50 who are ready to stop settling and live life on their own terms. Each week, you'll hear raw conversations, inspiring stories and get practical tools to help you reignite your own fire. I'm Beverley Glazer, a reinvention catalyst for women who are ready to step up and keep raising the bar, and you can find me on reinventimpossiblecom. Diana Esther Berschader is a soul doctor, a best-selling author, a transformational coach and the creator of a global educational platform. She was silenced in Cold War Russia, stripped of her dreams, blacklisted for being Jewish and told she should disappear, but she didn't. This story is a reclamation. If you've ever felt unheard, if you've ever felt trapped in your own feelings, this story will show you that your intuition is your greatest strength. So keep listening. Welcome, diane Astor.

Diana Esther Berschader:

Thank you for having me. Thank you, Beverly.

Beverley Glazer:

Take us back. Take us back to that little girl, that little girl that you were in the Soviet Union. What was it like to grow up back there?

Diana Esther Berschader:

I was born in the city called Odessa, which is at the moment is Ukraine. It used to be one country at the time of the Soviet Union and the city was very special because it was a town of famous artists, famous poets, famous musicians, and it has a very, very special energy of love. People that live there would never give up at any kind of challenges in their lives. They give up at any kind of challenges in their lives, but as a little girl growing up in a middle-class Jewish family, I was faced with a lot of challenges, emotional challenges, which unfortunately wasn't addressed by my parents, not because they were bad parents, only because the lifestyle did not allow them to give me this emotional support that they never had themselves. Yeah, so what happened? My soul wanted to experience joy and happiness in life and, unfortunately, everything I ever wanted so much. I wanted to become a ballerina, I wanted to dance, I wanted to go to ballet school, I wanted to act, but I was not allowed to do any of it. And my soul tried so many times to convince my parents, but unfortunately nothing helped and they were not listening to my inner needs of the child. I was simply disregarded and one night I was taken to a hospital with excruciating stomach aches. I didn't know where the pain was coming from and doctors didn't know either. It took several days and very thorough investigation to find that I had chronic disease of the liver and gallbladder at a very young age, which was unheard of for the child of my age.

Diana Esther Berschader:

Staying in the hospital that night all alone and being in a very, very strong pain because at the time, unfortunately, we had no painkillers readily available and the treatments that were offered, they were holistic but they were barbaric at the same time. So I felt at some point that I could not bear the pain any longer. It just took over me and my body was getting ice cold and I felt almost I'm going, I'm dying, Something is going to happen. And in that instant, for the first time in my life, I've heard the inner whisper hang on there, You're not going. Today, Everything will be good.

Diana Esther Berschader:

I had no clue what it was. I never heard anything from anybody, but in that moment the heat wave went through all my body and I felt like I'm coming back to life. And I felt like I'm coming back to life. It gave me strength. It gave me courage to hang on, to go through healing process, to go through investigation and many, many years during my growth, you know to deal with this illness, because it was not easy process and it wasn't something that doctors had ready things for. Anyway, that moment of clarity gave me so much courage and strength and built my inner trust based simply on this experience. I never shared this experience with my parents or anybody else, because it was no one who could possibly understand. No one who could possibly understand. But inside of me I felt very deep gratitude to these whispers and I decide whatever is going to happen in my life, it's like I discover an inner friend.

Beverley Glazer:

I discover someone I can rely on, someone I can trust.

Diana Esther Berschader:

So is that perhaps why you wanted to also become a doctor. That was at some point in my life, when I was growing up, because I had no solution to recover completely from my illness. I wanted to become a doctor. I decided one day I grow up, I will study and I will give my very best, I will become a doctor to heal myself and to help other children. But little did I know what my destiny was preparing for me.

Diana Esther Berschader:

And when I was almost finishing my study, one of the greatest war broke into the Israel and unfortunately activated an anti-Semitic heat wave in Soviet Union, not allowing Jewish children to study, children to study. And for the second time in my life, everything shattered in millions of pieces, leaving me not only heartbroken but without the future. I had no clue what would happen to me or to my parents, but something inside of me kept me going, giving me strength from within to look forward whatever will happen. So it was a time when I was searching for any kind of solution. My parents didn't know much about it, but I joined a little group of young people who wanted to leave Soviet Union at the time, if it ever will be possible. So we are, the young group somehow got in touch with Israeli government and each of us got an invitation from Israel to launch application for Soviet Union to let us out. It took for us four years of not knowing what's going to happen if they will ever let us out. My parents had to go through humiliation and also my father, who was a military man, was stripped of all of his honors. So, because I was the only child, they went all the way to help me to find my future and to live a free life, and none of us knew where it would lead us and what would happen. And again, by the hand of faith and I believe in God, I believe deeply in this whisper. Whatever someone call it, I call it God within my heart.

Diana Esther Berschader:

One night, when America put a lot of pressure on Soviet Union to finally let the Jewish people go, 400 first people were randomly chosen randomly and been given 48-hour notice to leave the country With three suitcases, $250 of equivalent currency, no passport, no identity, going into unknown with only love in the heart, searching for freedom and place where we can live our destiny and see our dreams alive. And what did you take? What did I take? Only had three suitcases. They only had three suitcases. Look, to be honest, I don't remember what I took because we had very little time to live.

Diana Esther Berschader:

It was not about attachment or personal effects. It was something that swept you away at the emotional tsunami. We had to leave my grandparents away because we couldn't take them with us. So it was like stepping into unknown at the most cold winter night I've ever experienced, and going through a very difficult journey from Ukraine into Austria, which was again a lot of humiliation, a lot of challenges. During this journey, we were virtually thrown out of the train in the middle of midnight into nowhere to find another station to walk. So we walked all night.

Diana Esther Berschader:

I don't know how many people it was elderly people, younger people. I remember everything. I remember everything because the only thing I understood God wanted a freedom for me. God wanted me to live the life of dreams and to share my inner strengths, my courage and my trust with others, telling them that there is always a way out in life. There is never one solution, there is never one way, there is multiple and it's always have something to do the way we trust ourselves, the way we trust the God within us, and how strong our desires are to achieve what it is that we want in life.

Beverley Glazer:

So where did they finally place you? Where did you settle?

Diana Esther Berschader:

We finally got into Austria. From Austria we were supposed to go to Israel, but because two days later after our arrival another war broke in, we didn't go to Israel and we were sent to Italy, to Rome. At the very, very first Jewish cameras, and after nine months living in Rome applying to various countries, australia took us as the Russian Jewish refugees, jewish refugees. So that was the beginning, the beginning of my of my life in freedom.

Beverley Glazer:

Did you feel you belonged after all this?

Diana Esther Berschader:

You know, I've lived in many different countries. Australia was one of them. I studied in US. I lived in Germany. I lived in many different countries. Australia was one of them. I studied in US, I lived in Germany, I lived in Belgium. I live now in the UK. The only thing I've learned in life that wherever you go, you take yourself with you. It's not about the countries, it's not about economic situation or the government solutions. It's all have something to do with you because you take yourself as your own suitcase wherever you go. And if your consciousness and your desire strong enough to find any solution in life, whether it's health issues, whether it's your relationship issues, whether it's your purpose that you're seeking for, there is always multiple ways, as long as your desire is strong enough and as long as you trust yourself more than any outside circumstances.

Beverley Glazer:

Beautiful. And today, what is that diamond within you? You have a good life, you're living in London, life is good, so what would you say that diamond within what are you holding today?

Diana Esther Berschader:

The diamond within didn't come just incidentally. I studied diamond business in the US, wanted to become a diamond expert, but somehow never made business out of it. And for many, many years this knowledge got forgotten. Until 2020, when COVID happened and I was under lockdown helping my parents in Australia Over the lunch conversation, the idea of writing a book and helping women to step into their inner power and strength came out.

Diana Esther Berschader:

Step into the inner power and strength came out Because there is a lot of the same things between diamonds and humans. They're both carbon-based, they both go through challenges, heat and a lot of pressure in order to become brilliant. But not every piece of carbon becomes a diamond. Diamond has a choice, as we do. If you choose the life of your dreams, if you choose to find solution to your illness, to find loving relationship, to live your life regardless of your age, to finally allow yourself to experience your life purpose and to live your life to the fullest. Because very often when we are young, we are busy with children, we're helping others, we are mothers, we are givers, we are wives, we are daughters, we are everything and it's never left time for us. But after our 50s, it doesn't matter how old you are, the whole palette of information can be open to you. Everything can happen only if you allow it and if you desire it strong enough to finally to live the life of your dreams.

Beverley Glazer:

What's one truth that you want the listeners to remember?

Diana Esther Berschader:

To trust their heart. If there is something in your life that you want to experience, trust your heart. But in order to trust your heart, in order to trust your heart, you need to understand where you're standing right now in your life, because everything is consciousness. Everything that we do in life, whether we are eating way of living, the way we speak to others, the way we speak to ourselves, our habits, our desires, everything has something to do with our consciousness, and consciousness is everything Very important, more important than what goes into your mouth, what comes out of your mouth, and I feel that if people will connect to their heart, to the diamond within, which has been disconnected for many, many thousands of years from the way of living that we live, we are very much mind-based society.

Diana Esther Berschader:

We learn how to live from our mind and our mind, unfortunately quite fearful, because that's what the mind is for to keep us safe, to keep us where we are without letting us to unleash our capabilities and to step into our empowerment. Your heart is the only place that will allow you to live the life of your dreams, to heal your body, to heal your mind, to connect to your own self, to connect to your divinity, to connect to your inner power and to feel happy and joyful ever after.

Beverley Glazer:

Thank you. Thank you, Diana Esther. Diana Esther Berschader is a soul doctor, a best-selling author, a transformational coach and the creator of an educational platform. She was silenced in Cold War Russia, stripped of her dreams, blacklisted for being Jewish and told to disappear. But instead she transformed and today she helps others reclaim their value and trust the diamond within.

Beverley Glazer:

Here's some takeaways from this episode. Every challenge has hidden blessings. Look for them. Sensitivity is not a weakness, it's inner knowing, and there's no reason to toughen up. You need to tune in and honor your feelings.

Beverley Glazer:

If you've been relating to this story, here are a few actions that you could do right now. Stop apologizing for being emotional. Catch yourself. If you do it, please let it out. Listen to your feelings. If something feels off, it is. If you're overwhelmed, take three deep breaths. It takes only 30 seconds to reset your nervous system. For similar episodes on body wisdom, check out episodes 110 and 133 of Aging with Purpose and Passion. And if you're a caregiver navigating the challenges of caring for a loved one with dementia, I highly recommend that you listen to Fading Memories. This is a podcast that will give you insights and guidance on communicating, managing stress, navigating grief and loss and prioritizing the wellbeing of both caregivers and those they love. The Fading Memory podcast offers essential self-care tools for anyone facing disability and chronic illness. Please check out the links in the show notes. And so, Diana Esther, where can people learn more about you and find your book and learn all about your services?

Diana Esther Berschader:

I have my website that is called thediamondwithincouk. You'll find all my social media links on my website. You will also find my books on my website and on Amazon. They're called the Diamond Within, From Rough to Polish, to Flawless, and the second book. It's called the Poetry of the Soul, because I'm also not only the writer, I'm also a poet, and my spiritual poetry helps you to raise your vibration, to feel good in the midst of the storm and to connect to your heart in a beautiful, loving and poetic way.

Beverley Glazer:

Lovely. If you didn't catch those links, they're going to be in the show notes and they're also on my site too. That's reinventedpossible. com. And so, my friends, what's next for you? Are you just going through the motions or are you living the life that you truly love? Get my free guide to go from Stuck to Unstoppable, and that's also in the show notes, right below on the description of right here you can connect with me, Beverly Glazer, on all social media platforms and my positive group of women on Facebook. That's Women Over 50 Rock, and thank you for listening. Have you enjoyed this conversation? Please subscribe and help us spread the word by dropping a review and sending it off to a friend. And remember you only have one life, so live it with purpose and passion.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for joining us. You can connect with Bev on her website, reinventimpossible. com and, while you're there, join our newsletter Subscribe so you don't miss an episode. Until next time, keep aging with purpose and passion and celebrate life.

Podcasts we love

Check out these other fine podcasts recommended by us, not an algorithm.

The Ageless Traveler Artwork

The Ageless Traveler

Adriane Berg
Reinvention Rebels Artwork

Reinvention Rebels

Wendy Battles