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Maggie Reyes:
Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the podcast. Today, I have the most amazing guest. We’re going to have so much fun. It’s going to be awesome. I cannot wait to introduce you to our guest today.
I just want to say to everyone, I tell my clients this all the time, and I’m called to share this at the beginning of today’s episode, whatever’s going on in your world right now, gentleness. Just however you can lean into gentleness for yourself, gentleness with your friends, family, with your partner.
We live in such tumultuous times, it feels like. I think the earth has always been in tumultuous times. I was talking to my husband the other day. We were watching a movie that happened in the past. I was saying to him, “There is no time in the past I would ever want to go back to. There has never been a good time to be a woman on this planet.”
There is no better time to be a woman on this planet than now, and it’s still not the best time to be a woman on this planet. So, I’m just having those thoughts for myself, and I’m leaning into my own gentleness. Just for everyone who’s listening, hello, welcome, gentleness.
Today, we’re going to talk about being on fire with your life, being on fire with your marriage, being on fire with yourself with the founder of something called Woman on Fiyah. That’s the correct way to pronounce her program, so I’m going to pronounce correctly.
Her name is Leondra Dimery Love. First of all, her last name ends in love so we love it already. She’s a Life and Mindset Coach for moms, and she started Woman on Fiyah after struggling how to figure out how to improve her health, how to get more rest, how to work on her own passion projects.
When was the last time you made time for your passions? That is so important. She was struggling to feel better about herself at the end of the day, and she became a Life and Mindset Coach to help other women not have to struggle the way that she had to struggle.
She is a member of The Marriage MBA, and we’re going to talk about some of the favorite things that she’s learned there, and how she’s applied them to her life. We’re just going to bask in her glory and her wisdom. So, welcome Leondra.
Leondra Dimery:
Thank you, Maggie. That was a fantastic introduction. I was like, “Oh my gosh, who’s that person?”
Maggie Reyes:
Right? It’s you. It’s so awesome. First of all, I just said a little bit about what you do, but please just tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do in the world.
Leondra Dimery:
I’m a wife. Well first, I’m a daughter. I’m a wife. I’m a mom. I’ve got kids who one’s in her mid-20s, and the other one is coming up on his last year of high school. So, I’m pretty busy handling their affairs. I’m a Coach.
I teach moms how to basically take their time back, and their energy, because they’re always giving so much to everyone else and at the end of the day they just don’t have it to give to themselves. I want more women to have time to do the things that they want to do, and not necessarily just a day at the spa.
I know right now self care is the buzzword, but self care doesn’t necessarily have to be a day at the spa, or a hot yoga class. It’s far more than that. Self care could actually be having someone come in and cook for you, having someone come and clean your house. Any of those things, the sky is the limit. So, that’s what I help them do.
Maggie Reyes:
I love that. I think a more expansive definition of self care is absolutely something that matters to a healthy marriage, matters to thriving relationships. It’s easy to associate it with something like a day at the spa, which is beautiful and lovely, and I love those days too, but self care is also saying no to things you don’t want to do, it’s also being uncomfortable in order to say no.
It’s saying yes to things that call to your heart when they make no sense whatsoever, and they just call to you so you do them. Self care at the deepest level, if you think about having a best friend, or having a child that you care for.
Can you imagine caring for a child? Caring for a child includes cleaning up the runny nose. It also includes playing. It also includes studying. It also includes all of these pieces. So, imagine self care for your inner child for whatever that part of you needs. It’s such a much more wholistic approach, and I love that that’s one of the things that you…
Leondra Dimery:
Yeah, I love that you just said that. That is fantastic. So true. So true.
Maggie Reyes:
I love it. Tell us a little bit about why you decided to join The Marriage MBA, and what are some of your favorite things we’ve talked about so far? Just take it in any direction you want to take it.
Leondra Dimery:
Okay, I was somewhere else in another group and I saw you Coaching. You were guest Coaching, and I was like, “Oh my God, who is this person?” First of all, you kind of remind me of one of my son’s friend’s mother. She’s a very gentle soul, super nice, and I was like, “Oh my gosh, no that’s not her. No, that’s not her.”
Okay, then I listened to what you had to say, and I was like, “Oh, I really like her. I don’t know why I like her,” because people I had been following before were more rigid in their ways and the way that they teach things, but it was just something very calming about you. I said, “I don’t know what it is about her, but I want that.” I had no idea what you did.
Then I jumped on… I can’t remember what it was that you were doing. Some type of training that I signed up for. I was like, “I don’t know what she’s talking about, but I’m in. Whatever it is, I’m in.” Then was it an accelerator program or something? It was in 2021.
Maggie Reyes:
Yeah, maybe it was the makeover — The Marriage Makeover.
Leondra Dimery:
Yes, it was for a week and I was like, “Gosh, this lady is fantastic.” I had no idea what I was in for, and then I was on your email list and actually I was just to a point… At the end of last year, 2021, I was giving myself a monthly challenge to do something different because I was just at a point where I needed to change my life.
It was maybe I need to take more responsibility and what’s happening in my own life so I can be a better person for the people I love. That would be my husband, my kids, any client, anyone I’m in contact with I needed to make changes for myself. I was reading your emails and I think you were maybe launching at that time.
There was this email, oh my gosh, it made me cry. I can’t tell you how many times I read it. I saved it in a folder. I said, “This is the email.” It was something about you can want things, and it’s okay to want things. That was the email I was like, “Okay, I don’t know what I’m going to do to get in that program.” I live in Las Vegas, so if I have to move a mountain to get into that program, I’m going to. Then, here I am.
Maggie Reyes:
That is amazing. So, that email is a theme that I talk about a lot, which is when we care about people and things, and our jobs, and kids if you have kids, or our partners, we often want what they want for themselves.
We prioritize those things, and we forget. We get amnesia that we are also allowed to want things. That’s basically the gist of the email, is just saying you’re allowed to want your marriage to feel better. You’re allowed to want whatever it is that is that longing in your heart.
When I talk about wanting things, one of the examples that I give, so I grew up in Miami, Florida, and Gloria Estefan, I’m not related to her in any way, but I feel like she’s my cousin or my soul cousin. I just grew up listening to her music, so I want to be invited to her house for lemonade, but I’m not going to be invited to her house for lemonade any time soon. If anyone listening is connected to Gloria Estefan, you know where to find me.
Leondra Dimery:
Yes.
Maggie Reyes:
@TheMaggieReyes on Instagram. I allow myself to want it, and I let it just be something I want. I don’t judge that I want it. I don’t deny that I want it. I don’t suppress that I want it. I just allow myself to want it. That’s my own experience of my own self Coaching, and my own experience, was like how many times in my life have I really wanted something then pretended I didn’t?
Leondra Dimery:
Yes, we do that. I think we may be socialized to do that as women. I don’t know.
Maggie Reyes:
Yeah. Yeah. As women, we’re socialized in so many limiting ways, the cultural narratives that tell us what we can and cannot want. I’m all about breaking all of those as often and as deeply as possible. Yeah, permission to want what you want.
Leondra Dimery:
Yes.
Maggie Reyes:
I love that you saved that email.
Leondra Dimery:
Oh gosh, I read that email all the time, because that email just speaks to me. After I saw that email, I went through, I did a search in the search bar, “Maggie Reyes”, because I wanted to see all the emails. It seemed like after that email, every email I opened there were words that just jumped out of your email and just spoke to me.
I don’t know what it was, but I said, “This is where I’m supposed to be.” When I got there, I have to tell you, I wasn’t sure how I was feeling about being in a room of other women. I was like, “I don’t know how this is going to work,” because I feel like I’ve got to put myself out there and tell perfect strangers something that’s going on that’s very intimate to me. I don’t know them.
It’s different when I’m talking to my best friend, or to my sister, but people I don’t know, what are they going to think? They’re going to think I’m crazy. That brings me to something that you asked me about, something you asked just a few minutes ago, something that I got out of it was judgment because I felt I was going to be judged in the group.
It’s different when you’re one-on-one and talking with your Coach. Yeah, your Coach probably may have some thoughts, but it doesn’t matter because this is their job. But when you’re not just in front of your Coach and you’re in front of your sisters in the group, you don’t know them. They’re not your sisters at first. They’re just other women, and you feel like, well I did, they may judge me.
I wasn’t feeling like I was going to judge them. I felt like they were going to judge me. That 100% has not happened. Like I said, I consider them my sisters in the group now. It’s nothing like I thought it was going to be, but that thing about judgment I realized that there is somewhere in me where I was making judgements.
I felt like because I was making judgements of my husband that people were going to judge me. When I say “making judgements of my husband”, I’m making judgements about things that he was thinking. That’s something you taught me. It’s not really what he’s saying, it’s the thoughts that he has. You have thoughts about his thoughts.
Maggie Reyes:
Yeah.
Leondra Dimery:
I told you, I have a whole bunch of thoughts about his thoughts.
Maggie Reyes:
From listening, we can have thoughts about other people’s thoughts. We just have to decide how we’re going to handle those thoughts, and are those thoughts constructive to take action on, or do we want to investigate them. Having thoughts about people’s thoughts is perfectly fine.
We just want to check in how we want to go through and process that. When you were thinking about the group and you were concerned about judgment, what was your experience? You said that did not happen. What did happen? What has been your experience just of being-
Leondra Dimery:
Yeah, that did not happen. This group of women, I’m sure all the groups that you put together, the women who come into those groups have no idea what that container is going to be like, what it’s going to feel like. They may feel somewhat like I did, but you listen.
Everyone has their time when they get to say whatever is on their mind. They get to bring something that they’re dealing with, and I love that. I didn’t think I would, but I absolutely positively love that. Every day can’t be a good day, and there are some days when it’s time for our call and it’s just like, look, I need to take up some space here.
Maggie Reyes:
Yes.
Leondra Dimery:
They allow that to happen. Not only that, but they’re sharing hearts and high fives, and very encouraging, or they can identify what’s something that you’re struggling with. They may not be the ones who brought it up, but you are, and they thank you for bringing up something that they’re dealing with.
That is the benefit of being in that room with other people. You’re sharing your story, and it may help someone else, when your Coach is helping you work through whatever your situation is and see it from a different perspective, helping you see it. I love that.
Maggie Reyes:
I love that too. One of the things that I love is one of my philosophies that I really wasn’t aware of when I started my career as a Coach, and now it’s just such an important part of my Coaching self, or my Coaching philosophy, is the idea of being non-hierarchal.
We’re all humans together having a human experience, and it doesn’t matter who you get the help from. It could be something one of the other members of the group said. It could be a question that somebody else asked, and then somebody else in the group answered. To me, I facilitate the group coming together. Of course, I think about marriage and relationship for like hundreds of hours.
So, I may have something to offer there, but in a way that everyone contributes and everyone’s contribution can be equally as mind-bending and earth-shattering as something that I say. I live for that, when somebody says “Oh my gosh, you raised your hand about the exact thing that was on my mind.” I’m like, “Yes.”
Leondra Dimery:
Yes, definitely.
Maggie Reyes:
“I did it.” That’s the best. I want everyone listening to just know that part of it is that we heal in community, as my friend Serena Hicks says. I love that she says that all the time. I’m sure other people say it, but I like to quote her when I think about it, is we heal in community.
Just seeing somebody else also have petty thoughts about their husband, or their wife (because there’s women married to women, too) it can be so healing to just know you know what, every once in a while I just have a petty thought. It doesn’t mean my marriage is ending. It doesn’t mean the world is over. It just means I have petty thoughts every now and then.
Leondra Dimery:
Yes.
Maggie Reyes:
Yeah. Yeah.
Leondra Dimery:
We’re allowed to have those. The other thing that I think is important is when you teach us, and this is one of my favorites, I tell my son this all the time, when you have awareness around something you have the opportunity to accept it. You don’t have to hug it, but you accept that it’s there.
When you accept that it’s there, you can have authority over it, and authority gives you power. You are in control of something that only you control, not your spouse. You can’t control what they’re doing, but on your side of the street what can you own and take care of?
That was huge for me. That was another one of those light bulb moments, and I know you could see it on the call, the light bulb just came on right over my head. I was like, “Oh my gosh, that’s available to me?”
Maggie Reyes:
Yes. I love that. Yes. That’s one of the things we really work on a lot, the whole sort of thread through The Marriage MBA is what is in my control, what can I do, what is available to me? Once we clear that up, then what does that leave for the relationship, how do I want to lead it, where do I want to take it, what do I want?
So often what I find is because we can’t control everything, we sort of abdicate our responsibility to control the parts that we can, I include myself in that, because I have been that person too, where I’m always am inviting you on the podcast and whatever programs I’m leading, is but do you what you can, where you are with what you have.
It will move you forward. It may not seem like it at the time, but it will move you forward. I love that you’re sharing this. What are some of your other favorite things that you’ve either learned or …
Leondra Dimery:
Let me just consult my paper over here, seeing as how there were some things I wanted to share.
Maggie Reyes:
Yes, bring it.
Leondra Dimery:
Pausing and breathing, the be here now is huge because in the beginning, everything, Woman on Fiyah, I felt like I was on fire, every time we’ve met. I was like, “These women are going to think I’m angry about everything.” I’m really not that angry person all the time. There are just certain things.
You asked a question at one point that said, what if anger is love confused? It was just one of those things that just kind of stopped me in my tracks, and I go, “Well, I never thought about that. What happens if it is? Is that true?”
Then like you said, investigate and evaluate, and I was like, “It could be.” How about if I just took a breath before I opened my mouth and lost my mind during the “discussion”, and I’m putting air quotes up there, how about then maybe I could actually hear what my spouse is saying to me because I have a tendency before you even open your mouth, I’ve already shut you down.
Cut you down. Nope, don’t want to hear it. Can’t feel it. None of that. Of course, part of that is owning my responsibility and the things that I was doing that I was unhappy about. I’m complaining about it, but I could be the one whose actually causing that. But if I just took a moment, pause, breathe, be here right now and listen, then I might not even have to deal with any of that.
Maggie Reyes:
It’s incredibly powerful that pausing and breathing sounds deceptively simple, and I can just imagine people listening saying, “Really? Pausing and breathing?” But do it, and try to do it on your own and see what happens.
This is why people join the program, because one of the things that happens is like, “Oh, it’s so simple. I can do that.” But you absolutely can, by the way. Be totally empowered. Go and do it. What happens often is we’ll have other thoughts. We’ll have our socializations. We’ll have our history. We’ll have things that happened before.
Then that pausing and breathing doesn’t feel as available to us. So, one of the reasons that I always do The Marriage MBA in six month cycles, is I want you to be able to try something new, play with it, experiment with it, fall down… Imagine if you’re learning to ice skate.
You put on the skates, you’re really wobbly, you try it a few times, you fall down a few times, you get back up again, and then suddenly you can glide across the ice. Even with something as simple as pausing and breathing, it takes practice and it takes, “Oh, I maybe should have not said that.”
I teach this stuff and I’m like, “Oh, maybe I should have paused and breathed that date. That was not my best moment.” Because we’re always going to be human. It’s not going to go away.
Leondra Dimery:
No.
Maggie Reyes:
But I love that’s one of your favorites. What else do you have on your notes?
Leondra Dimery:
Asking questions to get clarity.
Maggie Reyes:
Yes.
Leondra Dimery:
This goes to the “I’m already shutting you down. I don’t want to hear what you have to say.” That makes it kind of hard to actually find out what that person really meant, if you’ve already decided in your mind this is not even worth your breath, don’t say anything else to me.
I had the opportunity to get my husband to reframe how he said something, because I needed clarity on something he said that probably six months ago I would have just stopped him right there and that would have been the end of it. It would have been a disaster.
Instead of that happening, I took a moment to breath and I said, “I just want to be sure that I heard you correctly. Did you mean, because this is how I heard what you just said to me.” He said, “Oh my gosh, no. I can see how you would take it that way, but that’s not what I meant at all. This is what I was saying.”
That completely changed how we move forward in a conversation. Another component of that is something that you taught in the very beginning… How do you say it? Was it soul-centered communication?
Maggie Reyes:
Yes. Yes.
Leondra Dimery:
One part of it is keep the main thing the main thing. We’re not going to keep jumping around and going back in the past and bringing past hurts into this conversation. We’re not doing that. We’re just going to stay focused on what we have right now, and how can I keep this uncomplicated.
Maggie Reyes:
Yes. Yes.
Leondra Dimery:
Just don’t complicate it. I guess that’s the you, the keeping the main thing the main thing. Those things make a difference. They made a huge difference for me and how I communicate not just with my husband, but when I’m communicating with anyone. Just be receptive. Be open. Hear them out before you jump in and cut them off. I just have a bad habit of doing that, particularly with my husband, of cutting him off.
Maggie Reyes:
Slow down there for a minute, because I think this is really important. One thing is, when we have a habit like that, for everyone listening because I have also been that person in different contexts as well… My husband is a sweet cinnamon roll, too good for this earth. It doesn’t usually come up with him, but it comes up with other people. So, I just want to say that people who know me-
Leondra Dimery:
I love that.
Maggie Reyes:
It’s a protective measure. There’s something in me that says, “No, I’m going to jump in. I am not safe here. I need to take control of the situation,” and the way I’m going to do it is by going off in a different direction.
For everyone, if you have that tendency to jump in or to feel like when you’re talking about something you get activated in some way, what I want to reflect back to everyone listening is, sometimes we judge that part of ourselves. We find the harshness, or we find something that doesn’t represent the best of who we want to be in the world.
Then we can turn our harshness towards ourselves internally. I just want everybody to have a moment to think it’s often a protective measure. There’s something inside you that’s thinking, “I am in danger. I must do something,” and this is the thing that’s available to you so that’s what you do.
It’s only in the slowing down, and breathing, and giving the part of your brain that can detect “Is this actual danger? Is it clear and present danger, in the moment, right now? Or is it something I’m afraid of that could happen in the future?” Or something like that.
Then in that moment you get to connect with that better part of yourself that you want to be, and the part of yourself that you want to bring to your relationship and all that. I wanted to mention that first. The second thing I wanted to mention is, the way you’ve described is so beautiful where you heard something, and then you just asked.
It’s so simple. What do you mean by that? Did I understand correctly? Was this what you meant? So, everybody listening, your homework from today’s podcast episode is the next time you get riled up before you go all the way to the top of the mountain, just ask, “What did you mean by that?”
Leondra Dimery:
That’s huge.
Maggie Reyes:
That is the smallest… It’s one of those tiny, tiny things. It’s like putting sugar in the cake mix instead of salt.
Leondra Dimery:
Yes.
Maggie Reyes:
It’s this tiny amount, maybe it’s a teaspoon. It’s the tiniest thing, but it will completely change how the cake tastes if you put salt in there instead of putting sugar.
Leondra Dimery:
Yes.
Maggie Reyes:
Okay, so everybody, that’s your homework. Okay, great. What else is on your list?
Leondra Dimery:
When I reviewed my notes, because I know we’re coming up on the end of our work together, and I was like, “Gosh, let me just go back to the beginning of time here. What has happened since then?” I remember there was something you said in our first call about me softening myself. I was like, “Is she really serious?”
I was like, “That is not going to happen. I’m going to continue to be exactly who I am.” You weren’t saying don’t be who you are. Definitely not saying don’t be who you are. I took it that way, but of course as we continued and things progressed, and I learned more.
I was like, “Oh, that’s not what she means.” That’s how I was able to step back, breathe, and ask my husband that question, was becoming softer and not being like porcupine, because that’s not delightful. That’s your word, delightful. I want to be delightful.
Of course, I want to be delighted, but I still want to be delightful to my husband. Just noticing how he’s more receptive to me when I’m not coming off like “I’m getting ready to pounce on you and take your head off, and just snap at you for everything you say, or cut you off because I don’t want to hear it,” just being open, being calm, relaxed and just being softer. He gets to see that part of me, that he probably hasn’t seen since we were first dating.
Maggie Reyes:
Yes. I’ll tell you, I mention often on the podcast I’m Cuban-American. I grew up with a single mom. There was a time in my life I had two pairs of shoes, that kind of thing. So, pushing through and hardening, and being the porcupine, and getting through the things has been a coping mechanism for me personally that has helped me create so many things in my life.
It was a very big sort of aha moment and shift for myself when I realized, “Oh, sometimes you do need to harden because the world can be hard.” At that moment, you need all that fierce energy, power, anything. There’s a place for that that is absolutely appropriate, and that we should all keep doing, because we all need to move forward sometimes in the world we live in.
There is a place to soften. There’s a place where I get more from softening than I do from pushing forward. I try to talk about it in different ways from different angles, and I love how you describe that, that at the beginning it was like, “What is she talking about? What is she smoking?” It’s like no, you are still that fierce, powerful, amazingly resourceful, glorious, magnificent person. There’s a flow instead of a push. There’s a pause instead of a bulldoze.
Leondra Dimery:
Yes. Yes.
Maggie Reyes:
I love that. I thought that was a powerful view. Okay, I asked before we started recording if I could ask Leondra something that felt hard and something that felt fun, because I love being a Coach. I love being my clients’ biggest cheerleader. I am like the biggest fan of all my clients. I fan girl over them all the time.
At the same time, sometimes it’s confronting and uncomfortable, and annoying, and I myself have had Coaching as their client, I was like, “Damn, really?” I always want to bring that part of it to our conversations about how we move forward to create a marriage we want.
It takes freaking work. It’s fun work, but I don’t want to minimize or sugarcoat the fact that it’s work. So, I asked if you’d be happy to share something that was hard and something that was fun. What came up for you with that?
Leondra Dimery:
There’s a whole bunch that was hard for me. I’m just not even going to lie. I was just like, “How am I going to do all that? I feel like I’m going to have to change who I am,” but I didn’t. But there is something that you said, decide who you want to be and become her as soon as possible.
That what’s made it easier for me to grab onto that rein and say, “I’m doing this.” It felt hard at first because I was like, “What do you mean?” It’s the same thing that I asked a client that I’m working with to future pace themself, who do you want to be because you have to become that person for all these things to change that you want to change in your life.
I thought, “Well why am I struggling with this? This is something I ask someone else to do. Why am I not willing to do it?” Willingness has been one of my favorite words since I’ve been in your group. We’re so busy judging the execution of what our spouse is doing. It could even be our kids. Anybody else. But we forget about their willingness.
Give that some credit because they were willing to do it. They may not do it our way. In fact, they’re probably not going to do it our way, but it’s going to get done. Acknowledge that they got it done. That was a struggle too. Okay, well I’m just clap it up and be appreciative that you did it. However you did it is fine with me.
That was the struggle, the work. A lot of times, I didn’t feel like I was doing the work, and sometimes I would post something and you would say, “You’re doing the work,” and I’m like, “I don’t feel like I’m doing the work. I feel like it’s radio silent. Nothing has changed.” I’m changing.
I can feel that I’m changing because I’m saying things that I probably wouldn’t have said three months ago, or four months ago. I feel differently about it. I’m not just giving lip service. Something has changed. So, I’m doing the work and maybe when you’re not seeing that you’re doing the work it’s because it’s still working on you on the inside.
Maggie Reyes:
Yes, oh I love that.
Leondra Dimery:
There’s nothing wrong with that.
Maggie Reyes:
There’s nothing wrong with that. Sometimes, you’re doing so many things and it feels like you’re doing so many. You’re pausing, you’re breathing, you’re asking, “What did you mean by that?” You’re doing five things at the same time.
It feels like in the bigger area, it doesn’t feel like something huge has shifted yet. I always believe the small things are the big things, as you’ll hear me say a million times at The Marriage MBA. Those tiny little moments start creating the tapestry of your relationship, and it becomes an inevitability that something somewhere will shift, whether it’s with you, whether it’s with your partner, whether it’s with both of you.
You’ll have a moment where you’re like, “Okay, I see now what this is and what it can be in terms of where the relationship can go.” I think that’s so important. Yeah, I remember you posting about something like, “This is the work and you’re doing it.”
I try to always reflect that back because it’s sort of the grunt work. I always tell you all in The Marriage MBA, I say I think about actors going to the Oscars. We all want Oscar Night because it’s fancy. But the way you get to Oscar Night is you do rehearsals at 5:00 AM, and you work until 2:00 AM where you’re running your lines and everything, you’re trying to remember where you’re supposed to stand, and what are you supposed to say, and all of these things.
That’s what gets you to the Oscars. Sometimes with that Oscar moment it’s like, “Oh, I haven’t had my Oscar moment yet.” It’s like yeah, you just started rehearsals. Give yourself a break. This is how you get there.
Leondra Dimery:
Exactly, yes. But sometimes when you’re in it, you’re just like, “Is anything changing really? Is anything changing?” I feel different because… I want to say this, in the beginning you feel like you’re doing the work. It’s almost like you haven’t worked out in two years and you decide you’re going to start working out again.
In the beginning, everything hurts, everything is sore. I can’t barely stand up straight to get out of bed. Everything is hurting. Then you continue. Have the consistency where you’re working out two, three days a week, then before you know it, you’re doing four, five days a week, and you still have that soreness but it’s not the same kind of soreness.
It’s the soreness that says, “Yeah girl, you worked out this morning,” but it’s not the soreness where everything is creaking and I can barely walk when I’m getting out of the bed or out of the chair. So, you know things are changing, and you’re looking at your body and it’s like, “Oh well, the scale still says I weight the same thing, but guess what, when I put my clothes on, I actually needed a belt to keep my pants up,” or my shirt was a little loose.
You start noticing those things, and that’s how I feel about this program. In the beginning, I felt like, “Oh my gosh, everything hurts.” It did. “Oh my gosh, you want me to do what?” It hurt to do those things, and I was like, “Oh, this is just totally taking away who I am. She’s asking me to totally turn myself inside out.”
No, I’m asking you to become the person you want to be, and who do you want to be? You want to be that person who’s in a better relationship with herself, and that’s the real reason I signed up, was to be in better relationship with myself.
And then, I could be better for all the people in my life, including my husband. That work, that working out in the beginning has paid off. We do have conversations, and I don’t feel like I’m getting ready to jump on him or any of that. I believe he doesn’t feel like he’s going to be attacked by my words.
Maggie Reyes:
Yeah, that’s everything. That is everything. What was a fun part? This is why we ask both. It’s a two part question.
Leondra Dimery:
Well, the fun part was getting to meet these amazing women who are in the group and learn about them, not their relationships, but learn about them. They’re incredible women. Just being in community with them, and sometimes I feel like well I hope some of that fairy dust rubs off on me.
And, being with you. This is huge, because every Tuesday morning at 10:00 AM my time, I’m Pacific, people in my world know don’t call me, don’t text me, don’t knock on my door. You’re not getting my attention because I’m spending my time with Maggie. That means that I have carved out an hour for myself every week, and I look forward to that.
I get to spend time talking with you, even if it’s I’m stressed out about something. I know my Coach has me. She’s going to help me work through whatever that situation is. To me, that’s fun because it’s time for me. I feel like I’m with girlfriends, and we just get to talk. Everything is not bad.
There are a lot of good things that we get to talk about when we celebrate each other, celebrate what’s going on. It’s new and exciting stuff, and I feel like this cohort we had a lot of holidays here, so there were a lot of different things that were going on. So, it was fun. That was fun to me.
Maggie Reyes:
I love that so much. I’m going to say a few things about that, because when I had the idea of starting a program talking about having a better marriage, obviously some of those topics are very heavy.
When I imagined what our calls would be like, I was like, “How can I make this the thing you look forward to every week? How is I, as the Coach, as the leader of the container, make addressing something and being with things that are uncomfortable be something you actually look forward to doing?”
I just put that to myself as like who would I need to be? If I’m deciding who I want to become and then becoming her, just like I tell you all to do, who would I need to be to create a space where we could really touch upon things that can be tender, that can be heavy, that can just feel like a lot to hold?
And with lightness, and with gentleness, and with kindness, but also sometimes with firmness and… sometimes it is, it’s just it is what it is, but with a mix of those things that it becomes this hour that you just can’t wait, you’re looking forward to it, you’re excited to be there.
Hearing that back, I remember when I was conceiving of the program, I was like, “Okay, when I’m teaching stuff, we’ll make that lighthearted, lighthearted examples. We’ll use stuff like The Oscars. We’ll make that fun. Then when we get to the tender stuff, that’ll take care of itself because that’ll just present itself as people are going through things.”0
To me, just hearing you say that, I have to just share with everybody it’s kind of happening live on the episode, it’s like a dream come true for me that that has been your experience. That was my highest intention, my goal that I hoped that I would realize. Then hearing your experience is like, “Okay, we’re there. That’s what’s happening. Yeah, good to hear. Okay, we’re going to keep doing what we’re doing.”
Leondra Dimery:
Yes, because like you said, when you’re doing something that’s working, you keep doing it. You find ways to improve on it, but you keep doing it. I highly encourage you to keep doing it, because I’m coming back.
Maggie Reyes:
Yay. Okay, that’s awesome. Okay, is there anything else on your notes before we go to questions from The Questions for Couples Journal?
Leondra Dimery:
Another takeaway is intentionality and being explicit in what you’re saying. Goodwill goes a long way, but setting the intention of just being purposeful in whatever you’re saying, and whatever you’re doing, and connecting. Connecting is huge.
We want to be connected to our spouses. We want to be connected to people in our lives that we have relationships with. You still need to be intentional in your connectivity. That was something that I took away from you too.
Maggie Reyes:
Okay, I love the way you just said that. Leondra just said you need to be intentional in your connectivity. I will be quoting you. If Oprah was here, she’d say, “That’s a Tweetable.”
Leondra Dimery:
That’s a Tweetable, yes.
Maggie Reyes:
That’s a Tweetable.
Leondra Dimery:
I love that.
Maggie Reyes:
We’ll link to Soul Centered Communication in the show notes, because that really comes from the idea of being solution focused when you’re communicating. You’re being intentional. What is the purpose of this conversation? What is the purpose of what I’m sharing? Is the purpose to complain?
Is the purpose to create connection? What do I actually want from this, and what does resolution look like for me? For so many of you listening, and something that I hear a lot, is “I want to feel more connected.”
Then I will ask people, so I’m asking all of you right now, what does more connected look like on Tuesday? What’s actually happening? Because so many of you come to me with “I want to feel more connected,” and then you have no idea what that actually is.
That sets up our partners to fail, because there’s nothing they could do that would help you feel that because even if you go out on a date, no, even if they bring you your favorite flower, no, even if they remember your favorite candy bar, no.
Because we never said “Oh, these are the things that are meaningful to me. These are the things I want to experience more of. These are the things that I want to put my flag in the sand for.” For everyone, if you’re one of those people who wants to feel more connected, I challenge you to name something that you could put on your calendar, or that you could film with a video camera, that you would know whether it happened or it didn’t, that would help you create connection.
Leondra Dimery:
I love that.
Maggie Reyes:
That was my little rant.
Leondra Dimery:
Yes, I love that.
Maggie Reyes:
… for the day. A little love rant. Okay, so at the end of every interview, I love asking questions from The Question for Couples Journal. I have to tell you all, I mean obviously I wrote the 400 questions, but I don’t remember them. So then I’ll read one and I’ll be like, “That’s a good question.”
Leondra Dimery:
Yeah.
Maggie Reyes:
It’s like, “Oh, I like that one.” Okay, so the question is, if you could be the world champion of anything, what would it be Leondra Dimery Love?
Leondra Dimery:
It would be communication.
Maggie Reyes:
Tell us more. Tell us-
Leondra Dimery:
I want to be able to communicate in a style that my husband understands, that’s meaningful to him, and where he’s able to receive it and respond to me in like. That’s what I would want.
Maggie Reyes:
That is so beautiful, a real champion of communication.
Leondra Dimery:
Yes.
Maggie Reyes:
I love that. Okay everyone, so think about it, if you could be the world champion of anything, what would you want to be the word champion of? If you feel like telling me, tag me on Instagram @TheMaggieReyes. I want to hear what you want to be the world champion of. Leondra, how can people find you, stay in touch with you, and get on fiyah with you?
Leondra Dimery:
I love it. I hang out on Instagram. They can find me @WomanOnFiyah, Fiyah is spelled F-I-Y-A-H. I would love to hear from you.
Maggie Reyes:
Okay, we’re going to link… Awesome. We’re going to link to your Instagram on the show notes, and it’s @WomanOnFiyah on Instagram, right?
Leondra Dimery:
Yes.
Maggie Reyes:
That’s the whole thing?
Leondra Dimery:
Yes, that’s it.
Maggie Reyes:
F as in Frank, I-Y-A-H. We’ll link to it in the show notes if you want to follow Leondra. Thank you for being here. Thank you for keeping it real. I love it.
Leondra Dimery:
Thank you for having me, Maggie. I love being here, and I get a little bit more time with you. So, I’m never upset with that. Thank you so much for all you’ve done in my life. I appreciate it, really.
Maggie Reyes:
You’re welcome. Before I start crying, we’re going to wrap up the episode. Bye everyone.