Enjoy Corine’s charming, exhilarating, fun and at times irreverent conversation with Irene that ranges from a discussion about “Women in Toxic Relationships” to how a woman becomes more attractive the more she evolves! Learn about the “seasons of relationships,” how “letting go” is not a selfish act, and the signs of a toxic relationship.
IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL HEAR ABOUT THINGS LIKE:
- Corine’s own journey of self-discovery and awakening.
- Why it is important to be strong and resist peer pressure.
- The role of the ego in making a woman feel guilty.
- The role of religion in Corine’s life.
SOME QUESTIONS IRENE ASKS KAREN:
- When did you know that you needed to leave your relationship?
- How do you help women figure out how to thrive post relationship?
- Tell us about Doing You and Being Yourself, no matter what!
CONTACT INFORMATION:
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Listen to the podcast here
Corine La Font – Radio Show Host, Speaker, Author, Self-Worth Coach And Consultant
As many of you know, I had a profound spiritual awakening when my husband Saul died next to me in a tragic car accident, leading me to write my book They Serve Bagels in Heaven. Corine La Font, our inspiring, empowering guest, interviewed me about my spiritual awakening and my book for her now-syndicated radio show, Between The Lines: Empowering Network!.
Corine and I had tremendous synergy during our radio interview, much so that I now want to share the bright light of who Corine is with all of you. She was born and raised on the Caribbean island of Trinidad and Tobago and now lives in Jamaica. She is a Speaker, Author, Self-Worth Coach, and Consultant.
Her career has opened the doors to the speaking arena for self-publishing, writing, and marketing. She also coaches people who desire to start an online business. In addition, she now has a blog that often speaks to women in toxic relationships. Corine has two books coming out with intriguing titles, The Role of A Mistress and I Deserve Better. Welcome, Corine. It is great to be chatting with you again.
You make me sound good. I wonder who you’re talking about there.
It’s all true.
Irene, it’s such a pleasure to be here. I haven’t had an interview in a long time. It’s one of my goals to get back into getting interviews. We have our own online businesses. It’s always good to get out there. I’m interviewing more people than I’m being interviewed. It’s my first interview for a long time. I’m happy to be here.
I’m honored to have been interviewed by you. It was a wonderful interview that we had together. Let me start by asking you my first question for our interview here. Can you tell our readers about your own journey of self-discovery and awakening?
Let me correct something that you said. I’m not in Jamaica at this moment. I was in Jamaica for 21 years years. I came back to my home country in July 2017. You are talking to me in Trinidad this time. I needed to be home. That is part of the awakening and part of my self-discovery. I was in a 27-year relationship with my ex.
I’m not married, thank God. I have two children coming from that union. Two boys. One is here with me in Trinidad and Tobago. Both of them were raised in Jamaica. In his whole life, he knows about Jamaica. He was born in Trinidad, but he’s here now. He came back here a few months before me. My youngest is still in Jamaica. He’s in high school. I’m allowing him to finish off his high school. I’m hoping he makes the right decision to join me and his brother over here because it would be the better thing for him going forward.
His older brother has seen the benefits of coming back home. They’re dual citizens of both Trinidad and Jamaica. His older brother has seen the benefits. He has grown. I’ve seen him grow and develop as a young man. I’m extremely proud of him for his success. I only see more success coming to him. I want the same for his younger brother, my youngest son.
Twenty-seven years in that relationship. It had been a lot of ups and downs. I started that relationship when I was a fresher in university. That’s where a lot of relationships would’ve started. You’re young. I finished school early. I was in my 19 and 20s age. You’re off on your own. I’m living on campus hall, dorms, as they call it. You fall in love.
Everybody wants to fall in love at that time anyway.
It’s more about a lot of social pressure. Your friends are in relationships, and you feel, “I should have somebody too.” One of the tips I want to point out to people is do not feel pressured to do anything, even if your friends are doing it or in it. Doing it means sex, intimacy, relationships, partying, drinking or smoking. It doesn’t matter what it is. If you don’t feel it doesn’t resonate within yourself and your inner being with you, you hear the voice telling you, “This doesn’t feel right. Don’t do it. Don’t try to be a part of something that is not you.” It calls for you to be strong and willing to take a lot of flack and peer pressure from friends and family.
Do not feel pressured to do anything even if your friends are doing it. If something doesn’t resonate within yourself, do not do it. Click To Tweet
One place you will get peer pressure is at a university. It is a rude awakening itself when you are going through that time alone. You are on your own. You don’t have your parents overlooking you. You’re not in your parents’ home. You feel, “I’m alone. I’m an adult. I can manage myself.” I’m telling you, it’s a testing ground for later on in your life. I can tell you that. It helps you learn who you are and want to become.
I saw my friends being in relationships. You’re alone. Nobody is watching you. You come and go as you please. You study when you want. I have always been a disciplined person in studying and managing my time. I’ve always been disciplined when it comes to that. Nothing could shake me when it comes to my goals and what I want to achieve. No man, no nothing. I get focused, and I don’t know you. I’ve had that feedback coming to me from people saying, “When you’re focused, you don’t know me.” I’m like, “Yeah, I don’t know you. I’m focused.”
You sound like you’re passionate when you get into something. I can be a little bit like that. You’re heart-driven and passionate about what you’re doing. It’s a singular focus. It’s not personal to anything.
It’s not to mean that I want to ignore you. It’s I need to be focused. When somebody’s focused, I’m passionate about something. They need to be focused, and I should respect their time. These are all little signs that I started seeing from my university days. It demands my time. It’s hard being on air, specifically to tell you this I saw. I look back over the past more than several years now, and there are signs that come to you, and you know because you hear it inside. You hear that voice saying, “Why would he behave this way? Why would he say that? Why would he react?
One of the things that is coming to me is that my friends couldn’t relate to him. Even when I moved to Jamaica, people would ask me, “Does he smile? Does he laugh?” Little things that you would brush off. I’d be like, “He smiles and laughs.” It’s because he wasn’t relatable. It is not somebody that you carry a friend or somebody, you could leave them, and it’s fine. There’s no clinginess. I never paid attention because, when you are young, you feel you want somebody to be clingy and jealous because it makes you feel you are more wanted. He loves me.
I had a similar experience in my first marriage. It seems to me that you’re young to recognize the signs of weakness or even sometimes a touch of mental illness or how you’re not compatible. It takes life to start to wisen you up.
Nobody would know at that point about narcissism. A lot of people don’t even know about narcissism right now. It’s not a word that people know I didn’t know. I wasn’t aware at the time. Life at a university is a rude awakening. It’s an awakening in itself. We go through different levels and types of awakening and birthing grounds. I never knew. At the time, you’re young. What is happening to you with the pressure? Your friends have people, but you don’t know what your friends are going through with their own person. In your own physical eyes, they look lovely. They’re going out. They’re always together, but you don’t know.
I always have an expression, Corine. I can’t make a judgment about anyone’s relationship unless I’m sleeping under their bed.
You don’t want to be sleeping out the bed. You have to be sleeping with them in the bed. Besides the pressure, I noticed that my friends couldn’t relate. They used to be asking me, “Corine, are you sure about this thing?” They were on the outside noticing, but here’s how I interpreted that. They were jealous of me. You want what I have. Why are you complaining? You don’t want me to be happy? You have somebody. You don’t want me to be happy.
At that age, you’re thinking that I have someone, and they would’ve had someone. You feel like they don’t want you to be happy. These are the thoughts that are going through your head as a young person at the time. These are signs. People are seeing things that you cannot see because you’re in it. You are blinded.
That is what the whole awakening over the years. It took me years. It doesn’t happen immediately. It takes you years to come out of it. As the years went by, I moved to Jamaica. I left the relationship in 2015. 2015 or 2016 is when things separated. It was a few years before that. I started to feel the urge to build my relationship with Christ. I’m Catholic. I started going back to church. I started taking my children to church, and even that was resisted in the house.
Everything I tried to was resisted and I noticed. I started to talk about certain things. I’m feeling a sense of competition. I started to say, “Why am I feeling that you are competing with me? Why are you competing with me for the children’s attention?” In the first book that I brought out, I didn’t get a congratulations or an acknowledgment, or I’m happy. I never got a compliment over the several years, “
“Corine, you look great. You look loved.” I never got a compliment. I never got an I love you. What the hell is wrong with me? That is what you will go through. How could you be such an a**?
That leads to my next question for you because you’ve become a self-worth coach. It sounds like that’s sprung from this experience.
I’m still on that self-work journey because it is not something that has a beginning and an end. You are constantly triggered by things. One of the things about the awakening, and coming back to what I was saying about my Catholic faith, I started to delve more into that. I got this deepening. There were certain programs offered in church. I said, “I’m going to do that.” From Pilgrim’s Way, which is one of the things I did, it started building my relationship with Christ. I did Cursillo, which did it for me. Cursillo program, we went on a retreat for a couple of days, and it was a deepening of my faith.
What is that about, for those of us who are not Catholic?
Cursillo is a Spanish word. I can’t remember what it means, but it’s a deepening of your faith in Christ, where you spend a couple of days alone. They don’t have the men and women together. They take the men by themselves and the women by themselves. It’s hard to tell you what the experience is because each person has their own experience on that 3 to 4-day retreat. They have a specific program that they walk you through, but it’s your journey. Nobody’s telling you, “You should feel this way. You should think this way. Your experience is going to be this way.” You come out of that with your own experience.
They have a program. It’s an international program. I’m a member of an international group of Cursillo sisters. We have a word to reach for help to anyone. I could be in any crowd anywhere. Once somebody has done that program, they know there is a sister or brother in that program. They will help you. They will take you to their home.
What does that word mean?
I’m embarrassed to say, but I can’t remember. I had a problem. I hope nobody from Cursillo is reading this. I can find out and tell you a bit about the program after. I could probably do a blog, and you can attach it to it. That will help inspire people to do it. You don’t have to be Catholic to do it. Anybody from any faith can come and do that program because crisis universal is not a matter of anything. If somebody is Muslim or Jehova Witness, it doesn’t matter who you are. It’s a relationship with Christ. You are building.
When I did that, I can tell you and I will never forget this moment. It was coming on to the final day or night because you’re in prayer constantly and introspection. You’re in a silent moment. There’s no communication and cell phone. This is away from everything. We had a mass at a particular point in time. I felt the love of Christ strongly, Irene, that the warmth I felt in my whole body, especially my heart, I felt such warmth in my heart. It’s unconditional love. If I never knew what unconditional love was or is, I knew it then.
Let me tell you. When I felt that, I was bawling, Irene. I’m going to make a disclaimer. If I go into tears, please forgive me because it moves me to tears. When I felt that, there was no turning back. Whatever I’m going through, I’m taken care of. I am loved. There’s nobody out in this world, earthly or otherwise, that could love me more than Christ. I don’t need anybody else. That’s where the self-worth journey starts because you don’t need anybody. It comes from the point of neediness codependency, relating to narcissism and the feeling that you need a man in your life. I’m talking from a woman’s perspective.
Self-Worth: There is nobody out there that could love you more than Christ. You don’t need anybody else.
You are feeling that you need a friend, person, or job. Anytime you use the word need, it is coming from a place of codependency and lack. You don’t need it. We desire and want. We need to survive. We’re on this earth and say, “We need money.” No, you don’t necessarily need money because we know if push comes to shove, you will survive without the damn money because we’re that creative. You don’t need the money. It would be good to have the money to do the things that you want. A lot of the things are materialistic. You don’t need it.
There are movements now of people pairing down and finding more freedom.
All the brand name things, you realize you don’t need it. When you look around, most of the time, you don’t even wear the damn thing. You haven’t won it in months. It’s there. You don’t need it. After I felt warmed and loved by Christ, I am returning back home to the house. That was a point. I can’t remember what year. I think it was 2013. I did Cursillo. That was the catalyst to my spiritual eyes, not my physical eyes. I was using my physical eyes before, but my spiritual eyes were open. That was it, Irene.
Self-Worth: You cannot understand pain until you take a step back and go to a silent space. You want to hear, see, and feel your emotions.
I went home, and I don’t know if you could understand what I’m about to say, but when you smile, you know you’re smiling. Your cheeks move up your lips. The ends of your lips move. I was smiling. I didn’t know I was smiling. I was looking out through the kitchen window. I wasn’t even aware that I was smiling. Something said, “Pay attention to yourself.” I realized that I was tearing out to the sunset outside in the green grass through the kitchen window. I had a smile on my face.
You were happy. You were in joy.
I was in a joy-filled place within me. That is when things started to turn in the house because I was different in that spiritually. There were things that I didn’t have to accept. There are things I started to question more. There are things I started to see. I noticed the competitiveness and resistance. I found it ridiculous. I was like, “Do you want a medal for this? What is it?” I started to say it out loud as opposed to keeping it to myself.
I started to say it out loud to my ex. It created more contention and rift in the house. I started to go grey rock. You watch the individual that’s toxic. You are seeing their mouth moving. You are watching them speak. You are hearing the words. You understand what they’re saying. You have no facial reaction, and no words are coming out of your mouth. You are processing but in a slow-motion type of way. Everything is in slow motion. You are watching them. You’re hearing more than the words that they’re saying. I don’t know if you’re understanding what.
I understand that from your heart and insights. You’re perceiving this person in a whole new way. That is more of an objective way than coming from need, which is the original way you connected with this person.
It started anger. It created anger in him. He was like, “Are you listening to me?” I have no reaction. I’m not giving in to what I normally would have. I am sitting there like a rock. That anchored. In my mind, I’m like, “Why is he getting angry?” He’s like, “Are you hearing me? Are you here?” I calmly say, “I am not deaf. I am hearing you.”
Infuriated him because he was losing control of you. It was probably frightening to him.
I continued in that mode. The punishment started to come in ways of not leaving money and not giving any support. It’s the punishment. I managed, and I still took care of the kids. I still did what I had to do in the house until it was time to leave. When it was time to leave, that was something. I didn’t know how, where, and why. I kept praying about it. I said, “God, you will open a way. You see it. You will open away.”
He made it. He said to me one day, “Corine, this is it. If you don’t make this move now, you will never be able to make the move again. This is the opening.” he created an opening, and I took the opening. However, that opening had sacrifices with it. I want to let people know it’s not easy. I’m a mother. I love my children. I also want to say that when you see mothers or women have to leave their children for whatever reason, do not judge or blame them. You don’t understand what may be going on.
This is about women in toxic relationships. I’m going to say this, but it’ll be hard to accept, but take what I’m telling you. If you have to turn your back because of the circumstances that you may be in, that you may not be able to move with the kids, you may be prevented by the man because you may get wind of it. He may have friends because you see narcissistic people. They have their group of support and network. That will come back and tell them little things.
Another tip is don’t trust anyone. Whatever you’re doing, you need to shut your mouth. Don’t even tell or trust yourself with your own plans. Don’t tell anyone. Do what you have to do silently. Do your thing. Act as normal. Do your thing. People reading this may say, “I’m encouraging people to do stuff.” You know the situation that you’re in. I’m not encouraging anybody to do what I did. I had to do what I did.
Some people may need to trust 1 or 2 people who can help them exit the relationship. Everyone has a different situation.
You have to know who you may be able to trust. I trusted my priest. I’m talking to him because I didn’t do this on my own. I had God on my side, guiding me. I had to talk to a priest. You have to know who to trust. Nobody helped me to do my exit. I had to do it on my own. That is the thing. There comes a point when it’s you and you alone. Coming back to the point about women and leaving your children is going to be difficult. If you have to do what you have to do, you have to do it.
Let me tell you something. When you become a parent, you live your life for your children. That’s another thing. You sacrifice all your goals and dreams for your children. When the point comes, and you’re feeling enough, and you have to leave, you feel you need to take them with you. There’s another sacrifice. Sometimes you have to look after yourself. You cannot be the best for your children if you don’t look after yourself.
I always remember this thing that was said to me. When you’re in a plane, and if it were about a crash or something, all the thing that comes down from the top, the mask that comes down. They say, “Parents or adults, you make sure you put it on first before your loved ones.” You cannot help somebody else if you are not in a position to be strong enough to help them. I remember that.
You cannot help somebody else if you are not in a position to be strong enough to help them. Click To Tweet
I often think about the fact that what are you role modeling for your children? Are you teaching them to also advocate for themselves and love themselves? Are you role modeling that you should be able to take a lot of junk from somebody else? That’s okay. What are you showing them that’s okay for them to project later on in their own relationships?
That’s an important point. People don’t understand. When I hear people say, “I live for my children.” I’m like, “What a sad situation.” You’re not supposed to. Your role as a parent is to guide, help them be a better version of themselves, and help them to be independent thinkers and to fit into society or their own society.
It does not matter if they fit anywhere because they’re different. You don’t want to create them as squares to fit into a square society. You are supposed to have them be who they are meant to be. It doesn’t matter whether society wants them or not. It doesn’t matter. Who they are meant to be is your role. If you are not strong enough and are not taken care of, even not standing up for what you believe for yourself, what are you teaching? There are a lot Irene of dysfunctional families out there. I don’t care if you’re rich.
Why do you think I started this show?
I don’t care if you come from the richest, dumbest home. I don’t give a s***. I don’t care. You are in a dysfunctional family. You are dysfunctional, and you don’t even know it. It is when you take a step back or ten steps back, and you do a retreat or take time out away in a silent space. You want to hear, see, and feel. Emotions are going to start coming up in you that you never wanted to deal with that voice that keeps trying to cry out and scream out to you, trying to tell you, “I’m hurt. I’m in pain. Deal with me. Help me.” You have been ignoring it because it is painful.
On that journey, which I’m still on, coming out of the relationship and even having to walk away from my kids or not walk away, but let my kids go. Fifty percent is with me now. My eldest is here. I have the other 50% to work on. If it is that they don’t want to be around me, that’s fine. That’s another thing. You have to be okay. When we come down later in the show, I will share. I know you have certain questions that you want to ask me, but I will share how to deal with that and it’s hard.
What you’re talking about is letting go. A lot of people can’t do that, but it’s important to do that. If you want to talk about that now, I’d be glad to talk with you about that because I want to talk with you about something else that you’ve said is important to share with people.
Letting go is critical. Letting go of a lot of things. Letting go of who you were to who you are now becoming. Letting of your children. It is hard as a mother to let go of her children and put them back or allow them to go back into that toxic environment. You have to know if the person wasn’t physically abusive. It’s a sacrifice. It’s one for the other. It’s not like you’re trying to make an excuse to say, “You want to run off and of your own life and be freer from all your responsibilities as a mother and parent.”
That is not it. I did this for many years. I raised my kids for up to many years. It was me running everything, the house. I’ve done my part. If the father has had his own part for the last few years, that is fair. I’ve done it for many years. Why do you want to crucify me for not being there for the last several years? Please get real.
Something that you will go through. You are going to go through guilt. Your ego is going to beat the hell out of you to make you feel you were wrong and at fault. That is what my ex did. Everything that happened is my fault. If the sun didn’t come out, the wind didn’t blow, and the grass didn’t grow, it’s my fault. I was like, “Fine, no problem. I could deal with it.” It takes time. The guilt is going to kill you. What the society, your family, and your children try to do is to bury you. If you are not strong enough and strong in that faith in that relationship of Christ, you will bury your own self, and they’re going to laugh. They’ll stand up on your grave and laugh. You cannot allow that.
If you’re not strong enough in your relationship with Christ, you will bury your own self. Click To Tweet
When you strike out on your own, it makes them uncomfortable. It rattles their patterns for their lives. It makes them look within themselves. That’s such an uncomfortable thing. They don’t want to go there. When people are not accountable for themselves, it’s easy to point a finger at someone else and make them the bad guy. I’ve seen that happen a lot.
It makes them uncomfortable, especially when you don’t ask them for help and don’t come crawling and say, “I have no money. Could you help me?” You don’t ask for s***. You leave everything behind because when you go with the clothes on your back, Irene, you leave everything behind and walk over. It is not easy. You don’t ask for help. I have not asked for financial help. I have managed on my own. That is the one thing that keeps women in a toxic relationship if I want to go back to that. They’re like, “It happened to me. How am I going to manage? I’m not working. I was dependent on my spouse. How am I going to manage? How am I going to eat, drink this or that?” You manage.
Let me tell you something. Once you’ve decided to build your relationship with Christ, you cannot do this on your own. I am telling you straight up. If you want to do this or are in a toxic relationship, and you’re praying, thinking, and knowing that you can’t stay in this, listen to me. You need to get done in prayer. I’m not telling you who to pray to. There’s only one God I know. Let me tell you. Prayer is the answer to it. You cannot get the strength from anywhere else.
The way I like it is that Corine is, you speak because your direct connection to God is through Christ. There are a lot of people who will be reading this blog who do not have that direct connection, but they do have a direct connection to spirit, their hearts, or a soul connection. Whatever it is that works for you, find your path to that.
I call him God. Some people call him Abba and Jehovah. I call him Sauce and Universe. It doesn’t matter. It’s a higher being. Some people call him divine. I don’t care what you call him, her, or it. There is a higher being who is directing everything in this world. I’m not telling people because I’m Catholic. It has something to do with Catholicism. It has something to do with my faith. There is a higher source out there that is controlling and working this whole thing for your greater good. Tap into that.
You think it’s external of you. Irene, it is not external of you. That higher source is within you, but we are looking outside for it. It is not outside of you. That strength comes from within you together with knowing that I can do this. Something is supporting me that I will make it. You have to tap into that you can’t.
This is why I say you cannot do it on your own. Your own treaty, physical human form, cannot do it. I want to drill it down to. You cannot do it on your own in that form. You have to tap into that source, that energy, God, Christ, I don’t get what you call it. You have to tap into that strength, resilience, and persistence to move and wake up every day knowing it’s going to get better. Think about all the other people, even though it might matter to you now, because you think, “Why is it me? Am I alone in this world? I’m alone existing. Nobody else has gone through this.” People have gone through worse. People have gone through worse than you. They have made it. Why can’t you?
That is one of the reasons I’m interviewing you because people need to hear inspiring stories that can help them know that they don’t have to continue to suffer and they can move on, but it takes some work, strength, and faith.
God will send the people in your life to help you. He will remove the people who are not supposed to be with you. He will send the people. He will create the situations. He will show you. Let me tell you something. There are people who I’ve gotten rid of in my life. That doesn’t serve me any value. I don’t hesitate to delete them. I delete people like nothing. There’s a delete button on your computer, desktop, or phone. It’s easy. Delete and reset. Reset and delete.
God will send people in your life to help you, and He will remove those who are not supposed to be with you. Click To Tweet
You have to move in your way when you start on this journey to not be attached to things. This is what keeps us hooked, triggered, and staying in the situation. We are attached. What would the person think? I can’t do that. No, it is what you feel is what you feel. Is it hurting you? You have to do what’s best for you.
Tell us about doing you and being yourself no matter what. That’s hard sometimes.
It’s for you. Why should it be hard for your own benefit? I don’t understand that. I’m not saying it in the sense that you mash people’s toes or you do it once. It’s not impacting other people. Why you can’t? Do you? Why doing you would impact somebody else in the first place? I don’t understand that. How what I’m doing for me is impacting you. I don’t see a direct relationship because what you are doing is not affecting me. How can it be the reverse? What I’m doing? How could it affect you? You are allowing it to affect you.
I remember I was talking to a guy. I reached out to him. I can’t even remember what it is I was telling him because I deleted him. I’m telling him something, and suddenly, his response was it’s affecting him. I’m like, “How does this have to do with you? I’m telling you something about me. You are telling me you are upset and chastising me. You need to go.”
I call that detaching from toxic people with love. It’s like, “You’re not meant for me, but I don’t wish you ill.”
I detach from you with love. You need to go. You are not meant to be in my space. That’s good. You might be good for somebody else, but not for me. That’s what it is. Even if you have to walk away from your children or let your children go, it’s temporary. Always remember, everything is temporary. That’s a major tip I want to let people know. Temporary doesn’t have a timeline. Temporary could be a day, an hour, a month, 5 years, 10 years, or 15 years.
The truth is, the only thing in life that doesn’t change is that everything changes.
Fast forward to where I am now. There have been some challenging times because it will never be without challenging times. I went through what you would call convulsions. When I realized that I wasn’t with my kids, especially my youngest son, being away from him, I only saw him once a year. It’s a number of things. I can’t tell a full story here because we don’t have the time. I went through a lot of physical pain and mental anguish.
When I realized what it was doing to me, every day, I was bawling and crying all day, all night. I can’t focus, can’t function. It is debilitating and paralyzing. You can’t function. You’re out of thought. You can’t socially interact. You don’t want to go out. You do nothing. You’re there. You go through a depressive state. You are like, “No.”
There comes a point when a spirit will say to you, “Hello, please, wake up. You can’t keep doing this to yourself. If you trust me, believe in me, and have faith in me, you are going to get through this.” You suddenly say, “I need to wake up. I need to get myself together. What am I doing?” I’m giving in to what these toxic people or your toxic spouse are doing. You are giving them more power by being in that state.
I know it’s hard coming out of that state. It’s not easy. There are moments when I cry when the emotions are overwhelming and the memories come back. Your mind plays. It loves to replay those things in your mind. It loves to do it. That broken record was replaying because it wanted to make you feel guilty. You have to stop that record. You have to change that CD, MP3, or that broken record. Change the tune and thoughts. Reset and rewire.
Is that why you’re now a self-worth coach because you speak to women who are going through these things? You tell women in toxic relationships to give them the support that many of them may need.
That’s why I decided I needed to write the book I Deserve Better because you do. Women don’t have the self-worth. They’re coming from a needy place and codependency. I realize that I am codependent, or I was, or still am, because it doesn’t leave you, but you have to manage it. Coming back home, I looked at my whole family environment and realized it started for my child and my narcissistic home.
You often say that working on self-love and inner healing of childhood wounds is critical.
You have to go back. It’s going to be painful. Even if you don’t want to, it’ll send you back. Spirit will send you back.
How do you go back? Do you go back with help?
You can see counseling. Even if you don’t have the money, sit in an open space where you feel comfortable. It could be out in nature. Meditate and talk to someone who would be willing to listen and not judge, which is why you have to be careful who you’re talking to. You don’t need somebody to judge you. This is why I believe in talking to Source. The answers will come to you because God will not condemn you. He will not judge you.
Sometimes, people’s minds are paralyzed or rattled by what’s going on. Having a trusted person to speak with and share with helps them a lot to focus and get courage.
What came to me when you were saying that is, let’s say, I were to come to you and say, “Irene is my friend.” You will serve my purpose or what I need at this particular point. You may not be the person when I have transitioned from that to another point. It might be Sandra at another point. It’s not to say, “I don’t need Irene, you know. I was talking to Irene.” Irene may say, “I was the one she came to. I was there for her in the beginning. Now, she’s suddenly talking to Sandra.”
No, you were there for me when I needed you for this particular thing. I am at a different phase now because you’re supposed to be evolving. The person who you have in your life now may not be the person. It’s like when they talk about the season. Everybody’s in your life first season. Irene would be in my life for this particular season. I might need Sandra or John for another season.
You have to understand that, as you go through this phase and journey, there will be people that will come and go, like the elevator. They jump off at a particular floor. Who comes on at a particular floor? Who stays with you throughout the journey? It doesn’t matter whether it is the elevator concept or the train ride. People jump on. People jump off. People stay. People go.
Everybody comes in for a particular point in your life to help you. You have to look at everything and everybody that comes into your life as a lesson. What are you learning? In this relationship, what am I learning? What do I need to learn? Why did you send this person into my life? What lesson are you trying to teach me that I need to be open to this?
This is the position you need to come from when you decide you’re coming out of a toxic. When you’re in the toxic, you’re not asking those questions. You’re not asking about a lesson because you’re in a codependent state. You’re in a state of neediness. You’re not asking that. Your brain and mind aren’t there.
Once you decide to become aware and take on that journey, you have to come from a point of childlike state, submission, surrender, release, let go, be willing to learn, not judge, not criticize, and not anything. You have to let go of all of that egoistic type of character and allow yourself to be the student in the school of life.
That’s such wisdom. I love what you have to say about changing your need for codependency to becoming aware and seeing the relationship in a different way as to look at it and say, “What am I learning from this relationship? What is it teaching me? What is its role in my journey?” This is your attachment and readiness for the relationship. You can see it more objectively.
When you start feeling the emotions welling up in you, you have to ask, “Why am I feeling this way? What is this that I’m feeling? Is it real? Is it not real? Is it an illusion?” You have to question. You were not at that point before, but now you have to be like, “Why is this upsetting me? Why am I allowing it to upset me?”
We allow the things like how you allow the person to treat you. You cannot blame the person who was being toxic to you. They may have a role in it, and they did, but if you allow it, we have to take full responsibility for that. We may have a lot of it because we were not aware. We knew deep inside. This was not what we deserved. We deserve better.
Psychic Medium: If we limit ourselves, we limit our capacity to work for a spirit.
From that codependency, we felt, “We need this man. Who would want us after? I’m not attractive. I’m not sexy enough.” I went through that. I’m Black. I’m ugly. I am out of shape. I’m overweight. My breast is sogging. I don’t have any ass. You go through all the excuses as to why somebody wouldn’t find your child.
Let me tell you this, Irene. I am the sexiest thing on the planet here now. I’m attracted to many men. Men are looking at me and telling me how beautiful I am. These are things that I never even knew. They were like, “Corine, your lips are sexy.” I’m like, “What?” Now, I’m looking at my lips in the mirror. It’s something that I never paid attention to. People are looking at my shape, how I dress, and how I walk. I’m like, “Where was this all along? Nobody was telling me.”
It’s because now, you have self-worth within you. You have a whole different vibration coming out of you. It’s attractive to people. It’s not about the exact shape of your lip. It’s about who you are that is attracting people to you.
You’re vibrating at a higher level. You’re structuring your stuff. You’re going to be attracting. People know that at that level or higher attracting them. You’re going to have the little creepy ones trying to creep in there that you have to eradicate as quickly as possible, but you have to be aware of who they are. I’m like, “This is crazy.” It wasn’t that you were not sexy, appealing, and attractive before. It’s your self-worth that wasn’t there. You were more into serving that toxic person, giving off yourself, being self-sacrificial, being more for them than you will for you. Now that they’re out of the picture, you are able to focus now on you.
You fix up your hair. I’m not saying to spend a lot of money. Do your hair, even if it’s a basic haircut, and use the color. Do it yourself at your home or ask a friend to do it for you. Do something. We, women, are creative beings. Do your own nails. Play around with it. Go on YouTube, learn how to do your own nails, find some cheap things in a store, do things to make you feel good, fill up the bathtub tub, put some little bubbles in there, and light some candles, even if it’s not aromatherapy candle light. Get some wine. It might be cheap wine or a beer. Sit in there and drink. Play some music on the radio. Listen to your favorite station.
You don’t have to go all out until you get back to the point you know of making the money because it’s all part of the money. It makes you feel down and out, especially if you are not in a job. You build back until you are able to do things yourself. Buy a dress. I do these things for myself. I go out and see shoes., There’s a sale.
I buy shoes and dresses. It makes me feel sexy. I do the things to make me feel good. I took up dancing and coming back home. Dancing was something as a child I always wanted to do. I love ballet. I love musicals. I took up dancing. I do Latin and ballroom dancing. That is what gave me life. That is what made me even more sexy. I went dancing, and people were saying, “Your boyfriend will see you whining like that.” I’m like, “Which boyfriend? Which whining? I’m not whining.”
With the dancing that you’re doing, those hips come in handy.
You get all that stress out of your body and you feel good. Men come to you to ask you to dance. I dance with every man. People say, “You’re a dance whore.” I’m like, “Yes, I’m a dance whore. I have no problem with that.”
When women come to you about their toxic relationships, do you also help them focus on how they can make money for themselves and what they can do to survive in their transition? What does that look like when they come to you?
It all depends on their skills. I would have to have that discussion to find out what skill, what they like to do, what’s their passion, what they were doing before, and what people say about them because they might not realize that people tell you things and you’re not paying attention. Somebody might say, “You are a great baker. You make great cakes.” You might think, “It’s a hobby. I do cakes.”
That could turn into a business. You set up an online store, and you sell your cakes. People take orders, and you sell your cakes. It’s that conversation that I will have to have with people to find out what it is that they do, like to do, or what they were doing before in a job or they want to do that they always want to do, and we can turn that into a business.
This is wonderful. I know people are going to want to reach out to you. What is the best way for our readers to reach you? Is there anything special you’d like to tell our readers about?
There are a number of things. In terms of reaching me, I’m going to give you my personal email. People can reach me at CorineLaF@Gmail.com and FavoriteRadioHost@Gmail.com. That’s my radio show. I’m also a podcast host, as Irene mentioned. Go to my website, CorineLaFont.com, or TheSelfPublishingUniversity.com. Once you get to those two websites, you’ll be able to reach me anyhow.
In terms of what’s happening, a number of things are happening. This is the first day of promotions for my online self-publishing conference. It’s the second year. I’m having it in a row. In 2018, we focus on marketing. In 2019, we are focusing on reverse engineering, which means we are going back to basics publishing itself, making a choice between traditional and self-publishing or even hybrid publishing if you don’t notice that, you won’t be able to know the finish.
We are giving away free access using a code. You have to be able to register to be able to get access to that code for a one-day free pass for the conference. We get access to all the recordings. Ten wonderful speakers from around the globe, the US, me in the Caribbean, Denmark, Australia, and some other places, will be speaking at a conference on traditional versus self-publishing and hybrid publishing. If you want to get in for that one day and get access to all ten recordings for that day, they can register. I’ll send you that link, Irene. I don’t want to confuse people with many links and say it on the show.
We’ll put them out there for everyone.
My two books will be coming out. I cannot tell you what date yet because it’s been on hold for a while. It’s called The Role of A Mistress and I Deserve Better.
I love the titles. I can’t wait to talk with you about them when you come out with them. That will be a fascinating conversation.
That is such a tough topic. We need to talk about it because some of us take on that role while in transition. There’s nothing wrong with that. Let me tell you. You don’t feel guilty about it. I have a program coming up. I haven’t put it out yet to promote, but if persons are interested, I would love for them to make contact with me to let me know if they’re interested. It’s a co-authoring program for those same tool books. For any other book that I may bring out, I prefer co-authoring. It does well for other people.
You’re saying that women may want to contribute to your book about The Role of the Mistress and I Deserve Better.
If you have been in a toxic relationship, you are on the show, a person who has been on it or would like to be on it, or even you, Irene, you may know persons who may want to collaborate. I’m putting up a program for that for The Role of a Mistress. People who’ve gone through it, whether personally been a mistress or they know their spouse has had a mistress, have gone through it and have their own perceptions, takes, or opinions on that.
That’s a fascinating book because most people see that role as black and white. It’s bad, but sometimes it serves a purpose. There are many different reasons why people go into those relationships.
They’re not supposed to be judged. Do not judge people for the decisions that they make. It’s temporary. Whether temporary is 10, 15, or 28, it is there for a reason. Do not judge. If you are the wife and the person on the outside, you don’t know. We are all women. We should not look at another person and bring them down.
Self-Worth: Do not judge other people for the decisions they make. There is always a reason behind their actions.
If I knew somebody was a mistress to my husband, if I had a husband, I would talk with her. I have no problem talking with her because she must be filling a need that I’m not providing. It’s great for women to work together. Somebody might say, “You’re truly awake.”Yes. It makes no sense. Fighting something like that is best to work and collaborate. Look at how it works in those kibbutzes and those other places where they’re in a Muslim religion. They have more than one woman on there and get along fine. You have an understanding. Why, in Western society, do we shun that and look down upon it? We need to get real and change the way things are.
With all that we’ve talked about, there’s so much you could say about your tip for finding joy in life. It sounds like you’re on your own path to doing that. What would you like to leave with all of our readers?
Forgive yourself. That guilt and that record that plays in your head will do you in faster than you think. It will make you age and sick. It will bring out diseases. It will make you socially incompetent. It will affect you in making money. It is those limited beliefs that you are planting seeds of. You don’t need it. Forgive yourself. You have done nothing wrong. You have done what you could with the resources and during the situation.
We can all blame ourselves. I can blame myself. I was being blamed for abandoning my children. I never abandoned my children. I was still there for them. Nobody is going to make me feel that I did something wrong. At one point, I was there. I don’t think there’s something wrong with saving yourself, which is worse.
The one question that I asked when I had that relationship when I felt that warmth and things turned around for me in 2013 was, “I stayed in it for many years. Do I want to spend the next several in this?” The answer was no. It’s up to you. You ask yourself that one question. I’ve spent x number of years. Do I want to take the next x number of years and stay in it?
It was a wise advice.
Forgive yourself. You made a decision. You have to save yourself because nobody is going to come to save you.
Forgive yourself. You have to save yourself because nobody will come to save you. Click To Tweet
Once you’re whole, you can revisit things. Now, a different person who’s healthier and has figured things out is coming to change certain circumstances, and things have happened.
You have a different perspective. You have spiritual eyes. You’re not easily triggered. It might be triggered, but you are able to know. You have the tools to manage. You’ll be able to walk away because you have learned the idea of letting go and releasing with love because you’re coming from a place with love.
When persons are still carrying anger and toxicity within them, you make a decision to save and love yourself. If they’re still toxic towards you, you are not going to be lashing back with that toxicity because you are in a higher vibration. You are in a space that they could never attain. You are better off. They always say, “Be the better person.” You must work towards a higher self and being that you are able to not react but respond.
When you watch those Western movies, they’re shooting from the hip. That’s a reaction. You realize, “I killed that.” No, don’t be reactive while shooting from the hip. You must be like that gray rock thing in slow motion. You must be able to see things happening fast. It’s fast speed, but in your mind and space, it’s in slow motion. You are able to have the time to respond. Some people may say, count to 10, 20, or 100, and count backward. It doesn’t matter. You are able to respond rather than react. You’re coming from a better place and a place of love. Forgive yourself and love yourself. Nobody would love you except Christ more than you. That’s what it is.
I hate to be winding up this interview because it’s wonderful, and I know that everyone who’s going to read this is going to love it, but I’m going to have to. Let me summarize, end, and send you off into the universe for everyone, and enjoy you, Corine. It’s been great chatting with you. I have no doubt that you’ve given so many of our readers valuable insights about both self-worth and what could be their own toxic relationships. Let’s look forward to discussing your new books, The Role of a Mistress and I Deserve Better. I’m all into that when they come out, as I often say, from my heart to yours to be continued, Corine.
You see that on those TV shows, to be continued and little noise. You’re like, “Why can’t they tell us what’s going to happen now?” No, but you have to wait. To be continued.
It’ll be to be continued. You guys will read Corine and me enjoying each other once again in the future. I want to wish you every blessing, Corine.
I accept that with love and gratitude. I want to return the same to you. I know you’re going to do extremely well with your show. I’m here to support you in any way I can. Thank you so much for having me.
God bless you. Thank you.
Same to you.
Bye for now.
Guest Links:
- Visit Corine La Font’s Website
- Check out Corine’s Podcast Between the Lines: Empowering Network!
- Corine La Font’s Email
- Corine La Font’s Podcast Email
Host’s Links:
- Irene Weinberg’s Book: They Serve Bagels in Heaven
