How To Heal From An Abusive Relationship - Maria Diaz

How do you heal from an abusive relationship?

Sometimes it takes a while before we recognize the abusive relationship we have with ourselves. When we don't trust ourselves, we give our agency away. Maria Diaz inspires us with her courage and shares how cancer allowed her to see where she was stopped in her own life. When I think about radical love, I think about Maria Diaz. We talked about her building a relationship with her ex-partner, what people get wrong about healing, and how we can build our own legacy. 

Tune in every other Tuesday for a new episode on Heart of Humans.

1:35 Not believing in herself
5:30 What it means to be a leader in your life
7:02 What not loving yourself looks like
8:26 Facing the person who abused her
12:46 Shame and responsibility
16:19 A new commitment for her family
22:28 The expectations we have around healing
25:19 The benefits of self-love and what it looks like
27:20 How to discover who you are (forgiveness and responsibility)
34:17 Where to connect with Maria

Connect with Maria Diaz:
www.instagram.com/standcoaching
www.facebook.com/standcoaching
stand.mykajabi.com/stand-coaching-program?fbclid=IwAR1Vd1hKbOwVZr6Dqc6ZDfk5w6DtDwRgxIutLWhkcJlSTMKyUK6mpHy27Qo

Transcript

Jen Li: 0:01

The heart of humans podcast explores the secrets to building flourishing relationships. We demystify the elements of desire, trust and love by interviewing conscious lovers and providing reflections to help you create the relationships of your dreams. My guest today is someone who I've had the incredible opportunity to get to know as a friend, her name is Maria Diaz, her journey was a remarkable one, from experiencing abuse and a 20 year relationship and surviving breast cancer. She opens up to tell us how one could end up falling into this difficult situation, and what it took for her to shatter her own beliefs. We talked about building a relationship with her ex partner, what people get wrong about healing, and how we can build our own legacy. This journey transformed her into one of the most authentic people I know today, instead of allowing her health and an abusive past to destroy her confidence, she is now the coach behind stand coaching, producing numerous results with the people who are designing the life that they want you to be today is just someone who's so powerful that what you've been able to accomplish, has been unparalleled. So I want I want you to help people understand how you wound up in an abusive relationship.

Maria: 1:46

Thank you so much for that question, Jen. I think it's a really valuable question to ask why I was bummed out, and abusive and toxic relationship is because one, as I was growing up, I didn't have the space to build my self confidence and self worth. I wasn't given the tools. And it's by no fault of my parents, because they were not giving the tools. So as I was growing up, I was not given the tools for me to learn how to love myself. And what I mean by that is for me to learn how to accept myself, how to self reflect, how to forgive myself, for any of the things, any of the mistakes that I make, and how to have self compassion. So I wasn't taught any tools on how to manage that and how to reflect that for myself. And I grew up with parents that that were very strict. So they were at every step of my life, telling me what to do and how to do it. Again, they were protecting me, they were keeping me safe, they were being loving. And that's the way that they were taught about raising children. And so what that created what I made that mean in my life is that I am not capable of making my own decisions. So I grew up being indecisive. I grew up feeling like I don't matter. And I grew up feeling like I'm not deserving. Because I'm, I mean, I must not be good enough to make my own decisions. As I get older, decisions need to be made for me. And so therefore, yeah, I'm not good enough to do things. And what that created in me is deep insecurity.

Jen Li: 4:08

You felt like because you didn't have the tools to self reflect and find that self love, find that self compassion for yourself? You didn't feel the confidence to make your own decisions? And for you, did it feel like it felt more comfortable or easier to have someone else make decisions for you?

Maria: 4:34

Absolutely. I relied on my parents for all my big decisions. And then I went into a relationship where I relied on my ex husband to make all the big decisions. So for me, it was more scary to have to face the world to have to learn how to navigate life and be a leader in my life. That was scarier. Then, um, Getting into a relationship where somebody else took the lead where somebody else controlled everything where somebody else was the one who dealt with, well, if something went wrong or something failed, they took the fault. I don't have to worry about anything. I can just go along for the ride. That was more comfortable. Yes.

Jen Li: 5:24

Yeah. Yeah, I definitely understand that. Yeah, brings me to wonder if if you feel that it's in all of us to be leaders in our lives? And why do you think that?

Maria: 5:43

Oh, yes, absolutely. I absolutely believe that we all have that, that deep leadership, and that we have within us a guide, and this connectedness to our core values. And when we reflect, and when we can get reconnected to those core values, we're able a, we're able to practice them, then we can trust ourselves. And we can trust them the ability that we have, we are amazing, as human beings we have, we have this ability to have a deep sense of resilience, strength, courage. You know, there's so many stories of so many people that go through so many things in life, that are just so astonishing. And that I know, it's the proof that we all are amazing at our core. And that what happens is that we get conditioned as we move along in life. And we make up stories about who we are. Based on that conditioning, I started believing that I couldn't provide myself the level of love that I was desiring in meeting and that another human being needed to provide that for me. So I didn't, I didn't validate myself, I didn't acknowledge myself, I didn't look at all the power that I held inside. And I was searching for it from outside of myself. And so that took away my personal power. And what that brought me to believe is that life happens to me, and I have no choice. And it wasn't until later on in life that I actually learned and discovered that I do have choice and that I create my life. And we all have that

Jen Li: 7:59

you've been through a lot. And it was it was really, really, really important for you to to develop and grow from that experience. And also develop a relationship with the person who abused you. Can you share more about that? Hmm. So

Maria: 8:26

I was in my relationship with my ex husband for 20 years. And I exited that relationship only after facing breast cancer. So for me, I was so I was so discouraged. And I was feeling like I was the problem. And I was the one who needed to be fixed. And that's something that we all fall into when we're in toxic and abusive relationships, we start believing that there's something wrong with us, and that we need to be fixed. And so I went on this journey to try to fix myself. And no matter what I did, I caught it. That's what it looked like. That's what it seemed like. And it took breast cancer to wake me up to the reality of what was actually happening. And to see him to face the fact that I was being toxic to myself. And that I was this honoring myself. And that my relationship with myself was the one that was toxic to begin with was the one that was abusive to begin with. Because I was not honoring the truth of who I am. I was pretending that everything was okay. And I was going along with something. And so once I discovered that It led me to finally make the decision to leave and to end that 20 year relationship with a man that I didn't love very much. And now, the love that I have for him has evolved into a beautiful friendship of love and respect and co parenting. And at the time that I left, I was full of anger, I was full of resentment, and I was full of blame towards him. Everything was his fault. Everything that happened, the way that it impacted me the way that it impacted our daughters the way that impacted him, it was all his fault. And let me tell you, the first one of the first steps, for me to actually gain my power back and be in my leadership and be able to create a possibility for anything to shift in my life was forgiveness and taking personal responsibility, I moved from this is all his fault. And look at what he did to me. And here's all my proof, to I co created this relationship, I was just in it as much as he was, we were both codependent, we both didn't have the tools to navigate a healthy relationship based on our backgrounds and the way that we grew up. And we did the best that we could with what we had. And so coming from that space, I was able to forgive him. And I was able to take responsibility and accountability for that toxicity I brought to the relationship. And that began a journey of both of us healing from that.

Unknown: 11:53

Wow.

Jen Li: 11:54

Yeah, it takes a lot, it takes a lot to dig deep into what made it a toxic relationship with yourself to begin with. Let alone, you know, healing a toxic relationship with another person. It must have been, it must have been difficult. But you know, I remember asking you this, and you said healing your abusive relationship was actually much it was harder than getting cancer moving through cancer, and was like, Can you explain to people why?

Maria: 12:46

I was so in the depths of hopelessness. And at least with cancer, it was very, very much like, okay, you have this, and then I had a choice, what am I going to do with it? Right, how am I going to respond to the cancer, right, and it was very black and white, the seven steps that I can take. When it came to my relationship with my ex husband, there was so much codependency on top of that we had two daughters. And then I had to really look at and consider how is all of this gonna play out? How, how are Am I going to move forward with my two daughters? How am I going to heal? How are they got to heal. It wasn't something that was black and white. It was something that I knew the journey was was something I've never been through before. And it's not some it's something that that comes with emotions and with different moving parts. We're talking about human beings and human emotions. Right. So. So even though facing death was something really profound, and it was scary. I'm dealing with the mess that I created was scarier to see cancer, for me was something that happened like I had, I had no control over my relationship I have I have full control and dominion of it and I co created it. I made that mess and and then having to take responsibility for the mess that I co created. It takes it takes having to face yourself and I think having to face ourselves, especially in the dark parts. That that is one of the most challenging things that that we as human beings face. Because there's a lot Shame around it. Um, there's some, there's a lot of shame, there's a lot of disappointment, there's a lot of sorrow and pain and sadness, you know, I had to face that I was an abusive Mom, I had to face that I was a controlling Mom, I had to face that whatever my daughters were dealing with, and their mental health was at your at direct product and result of the way that I co created this relationship with my ex husband, and then having to face that you hurt the people that you love the most. That's one of the hardest things to ever do in life.

Jen Li: 15:44

I'm, like, I'm always inspired by women who have been able to not just overcome a health crisis, like this was a relationship that obviously meant a lot to you. And I want you to share with people why it was important for the father of your child to have a close relationship with your daughters.

Maria: 16:12

Wow. Um, yeah. So when after, after I, I ended that relationship, and I saw the pain that my children were in, you know, in that, even though I ended the relationship, it's still a painful process, you know, we separated everything. And then going through those conversations about how to co parent, and when when the girls going to spend time with him, When are they going to spend time with me, and dealing with, especially my younger daughter, who was nine at the time, dealing with her sorrow, have her done that living with her in that feeling so strange, that she couldn't wake up and then just just see her that That in itself really, really impacted me. And so I looked for ways that I can commit, I was very committed to that my daughters grew up knowing that they're loved, and that their father and I splitting up didn't mean that they couldn't have their parents. And, and, and I really expand that in that commitment to that. I was going to heal from abuse, and I was going to literally kick abuse out of my family, and cut it off, so that it wouldn't keep going in our generations. And that was very important to me, because I saw I was living the effects of what it causes. You know, my ex husband also dealt with abuse from from a very young age. So it was in his family as well. And so I was very committed to that, even though we grew up, however we grew up that, that we could heal from that. And that for me, it was really important to teach my daughters that you can overcome anything and through forgiveness and self reflection and taking responsibility, you can get to the other side of something, even though in the moment that seems impossible. I also had a conversation with with a friend of mine, who shared with me what it was like for him growing up with two parents who hated each other, and how he would bounce between each other and how it hurt him to hear each parent talk so negatively about the other, how painful that was for him. And I never wanted that for my daughter's. So I committed to that that wasn't going to happen in my life and in my family, and that I was going to create something different. And and it does take time. You know, I separated in June of 2015. And it wasn't until 2017 where things really started shifting more. And and it's been a progression over time, where today my ex husband and I are really good friends. We've created that he comes over to my place every Saturday and we have family time. He has a younger daughter now who's almost three and she comes along with him so you know the girls get to be with each other as sisters. They get to co create that sister bond with the little sister. And now with our granddaughter, and we watch movies, we have dinner together. And we have conversations. And so something that was really powerful is that my younger daughter, about two years ago, she said to me, Mom, I'm so happy, I feel so fulfilled. And I'm like, what makes you feel that way? She goes, even though you're that, and that together, you guys still love each other, and you don't fight anymore, and you're not mean to each other anymore. And you actually have created this environment where I now have two homes. And and you guys come and go with the family things together with the family things with our extended family. And it doesn't it there's no negativity, so I trust that I know that I can count on both of my parents, and that now they have a healthy friendship. Instead of what was there before?

Jen Li: 21:10

How does it feel to hear that

Maria: 21:15

it fills my heart with so much joy. There's nothing more fulfilling for me than to hear that my daughters feel loved. And they feel connected, and they feel like they belong. And that all that happens is their family looks different now. And there's nothing wrong with that.

Jen Li: 21:47

And I'm so moved by and touched by that because it's, it's, it's what every divorce child wants from, from their parents is for them to, you know, not just be happy, but also

Unknown: 22:05

just accept

Jen Li: 22:07

the things that worked and also didn't work and and that we all tried our best to keep it together. I know, it's extraordinary, I know that your your daughter's all of them, including your grandchild is is a testament to that hard journey. What do you think people get wrong, about healing,

Maria: 22:37

the expectations that we have about healing and the experience, the expectations we have of ourselves around our healing, and the expectations that we have of others in their healing. I know for myself, that was something that took some time, you know, I was so committed to our family, being loving and releasing abuse, that I did go through a period of time where I had so much expectations, and I was so attached to the way that it was going to turn out and they had to be my way. And I didn't consider that there were other people involved, and that everyone is in their own life journey. And that everyone moves at their own pace, and they have their own healing to do, and that it's not going to look the way I want it to look for them. That what had the most value was for me to focus on my own healing and what I was going to look like for me, because that gave everybody else in my life, the space to be with their own healing, again, by injecting the self compassion and the self acceptance and the self forgiveness into it, and taking responsibility for that. So I think I think that healing is a very personal journey. And that focusing on our own healing and having compassion for our own healing journey, is what makes the difference.

Jen Li: 24:29

I mean, this is one of the reasons why you're one of you are one of the most generous people I know like for you to say that. You know, it wasn't about my way and it was about other people there and what they were going through it's it's so hard for people to get outside of themselves and to hear you embrace like what I hear is this to embrace This journey that you had with yourself that's so personal. And, like that is what is going to heal our relationships is our own self compassion, our own self, the love.

Maria: 25:19

Yeah, because we are the longest relationship we're ever gonna have. So if our relationship with ourselves is not healthy, if it's not intimate, if it's not full of all the things that we're looking for out there in someone else, how can we then fulfill on having that kind of a relationship with someone else if we're not able to do that with ourselves. So I think that that's, for me, elevating the relationship with myself getting real with myself reflecting, learning to honor myself creating boundaries, and acknowledging my own mistakes and failures and releasing shame has been what has created a more intimate and authentic relationship with myself in such a way that I just show up as me. And there's nothing that has been more freeing and more joy Julius for me, like, that's my source of happiness and fulfillment is that wherever I go, now, I show up as me and that I don't even know how to describe it, it's the most orgasmic thing to experience is to be yourself and to be grounded in who you are. And so when we show up that way, as a whole human beings in a relationship, um, for me, in my experience, it's, it's been the way that I can actually co create a powerful partnership, and relationship full of love and understanding and collaboration, and communication, the type of communication that's authentic and vulnerable, that creates deep intimacy and romantic relationships, and all types of relationships as well, not just romantic.

Jen Li: 27:30

Where do you even begin to own yourself where you are and say, like, I get to be myself? Like, where are you even begin? When there's so much media and expectations about us? And what we should look like as families as relationships? As people? Where do you even begin to explore like, to really stand in who you are? Because to me, you are who you you were so authentic. I, like where do you Where does one begin to delve into that and discover that for themselves?

Maria: 28:15

Hmm, I would say, in my experience, it was really learning to forgive myself. I think self forgiveness is a really good starting point. Because until we're able to forgive ourselves, and recognize that whoever made those choices that that I made. So the the me that I was when I made all the choices I have made in my past that didn't work out, or that were not aligned to who I really am. She was doing the best that she could with what she knew. And I think that's the best starting point. It's really realizing and grounding into every day, we are absolutely doing the very best that we can with what we know. And when we recognize that, then we can have the capacity to forgive ourselves. We have we can have the capacity to have self compassion, and just accept that. It has been part of our learning journey. We're all here to learn well and expand and everything, every experience that I've had, it has, it has elevated me it It is it is an opportunity for me to learn and grow. And so when we shift the way that we look at things, it just changes because instead of looking at it, like I am bad, I don't deserve anything further, you know, I'm just broken, I'm just a bad human being. And I just eff everything up. And, and I'm a screw up, then that doesn't give me the opportunity for me to grow. And for me to expand from everything that that I experience in life. But when I look at it from Okay, this, this happened, and I'm doing the best that I can, with, with what I know, if I knew something else, I would definitely apply that something else. But this is where I am right now in my in my life. And so and this is who I was, you know, when I was 21 years old, and I got into that relationship, I was a different human being with with different skill sets and different knowledge. If I had known then what I know now, absolutely, I would have dealt with things in a different way. But I knew what I knew. And so being compassionate to that where I was 10 years from now, I'm gonna be at a different point than where I am today. But guess what, I'm making my decisions. Today, based on what I know now and my awareness now I can predict it to what my awareness will be 10 years from now and then wrong myself and shame myself for not knowing more. So I think that that's a really good starting point, just just being okay with being a human being, because that's what it looks like a human being. And walking away from having to get it right all the time. You know, we were so you know, we're taught by our parents, but school by society that the goal is perfection. When that doesn't exist, what has power is, is choosing how we're going to respond to every experience. Because that is that has been a game changer in my life, like how do I choose? Okay, this is showing up in my life? How am I going to respond to it? Who am I going to be? For me? I have chosen to respond with love, like how am I going to be loving in this situation? How am I going to be compassionate in the situation? And how can I take responsibility? So when I asked myself those questions, it has me reflect on who do I want to be in my life? How do I want to be remembered when I die? And everything is said and done for me? How do I want to be remembered? How do I want to have impacted the people in my life? What kind of legacy do I want to leave behind with the way that I create my life and the choices that I make and the way that I respond to what shows up in my life that it looks like I have no control over and I don't. But I have control over myself. And I have control over the way that I respond to that that presents itself into my life. And that's what it looks like to have choice and to create my life.

Jen Li: 33:47

If you feel called to answer those questions, I encourage you to hit up Maria Diaz, she is an extraordinary coach. I want to thank you so much for giving me your depth and your strength because I feel strong when I'm around you. I want you to tell people how they can find you. And thank you again for being on this show. Maria.

Maria: 34:17

Thank you. I appreciate and I love you and it's been an honor to have this conversation with you, Jen. So you can find me on my Instagram page at sand coaching. And also my Facebook page at a stand coaching or Maria DS. And the links to my program and my private Facebook group where I share more information and tools is also on my handles on my Instagram. Thank you so much. It's always such an honor and a pleasure to talk to you and to dive into these conversations with you Jen