In this shorter, more personal episode today, Leanne shares a conversation originally recorded inside the Braver Women® Community following Valentine’s Day - a time that can stir up powerful emotions around loneliness, romantic love, and self-worth, especially for LGBTQ+ women who have not always felt fully seen or understood.

This episode explores the deeper reality behind fear of judgement and fear of disconnection, and why romantic love often brings our emotional patterns to the surface. Rather than offering surface level reassurance, Leanne speaks honestly about the difference between romantic love and the many other forms of connection that shape our lives - and how confusing the two can quietly fuel the inner critic.

Inside this conversation, you’ll hear reflections on:

• Why romantic love can feel intense - and what it often reveals beneath the surface
• How loneliness can activate older emotional imprints linked to belonging and safety
• The difference between longing for romantic love and believing you are without love entirely
• How self-worth grows through the relationship you have with yourself, not just through being chosen

If this episode resonates, the Braver Women® community is where these deeper conversations continue. It’s a space for lesbian and queer women who are ready to move beyond insight alone and begin changing the emotional patterns that shape how they live and relate.

Join the Braver Women® community here: Click Here

This is a remarkable community that contains the deeper conversations, insights and material to support you that isn't shared anywhere else. It's completely complimentary to join us.

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Fear of judgement is often framed as a confidence issue or an overthinking problem.

For many lesbian and queer women, it’s neither.

In this episode, Leanne goes beneath surface explanations to look at what fear of judgement is really organised around, why it shows up in the body before the mind, and why “just be yourself” advice misses the point entirely.

This episode is for women who know their fear isn’t irrational, but haven’t yet had the language to understand it.

If you’ve ever felt yourself scanning rooms, editing your truth, managing reactions, or carrying responsibility for how others feel, this episode will put words to something you’ve been living inside.

This is a clear-eyed look at why your system learned what it did - and what actually begins to loosen fear of judgement at its root.In this episode, we explore

• Why fear of judgement isn’t about confidence, mindset, or approval

• How fear of judgement is really about relational consequence and belonging

• Why lesbian and queer women are disproportionately affected

• How subtle discrimination, micro-aggressions, and social surveillance shape nervous-system responses

• The role of attachment and implicit memory in fear-based coping

• Why fear shows up as a state change in the body, not just a thought

• Emotional over-responsibility and how it becomes a survival strategy

• The four common adaptations many queer women develop:

  • The Room Reader

  • The Overtime Earner

  • The Self-Silencer

  • The Human Shield

• What individuation actually means and why it’s missing for so many women

• Why some relationships change when you stop managing other people’s emotions

• How fear of judgement loosens when you stop organising your life around it

  
  

  Come and join us inside the Braver Women Community - HERE

  Contact Leanne - HERE

In this episode of The Braver Women Show, I’m joined by client, George, a queer woman based in the UK, for a real and honest conversation about trauma, recovery, and what it means to find your voice again after years of holding it back.

This is not a polished interview. It is a relaxed, human conversation about what changes when a woman stops performing and starts relating to herself differently.

George shares her Braver Women therapy journey , including how childhood trauma shaped her sense of self, how internalised beliefs quietly ran her life for years, and what began to shift when she learned how to stay connected to herself rather than escape from what she was feeling.

We talk about disconnection, addiction, losing yourself in other people, and the long term impact of living through survival patterns. George also reflects on why previous therapy did not help at the time, and what made this work different once she was ready to lean in.

At its core, this particular episode is about voice. About moving from getting through life to actually being present in it. And about reconnecting to a sense of agency and self worth after trauma.

Content note:
This episode includes brief references to addiction, self harm, and suicide, discussed within the context of recovery and healing. Listener discretion is advised.

What we touch on in this episode

• How trauma can silence your voice long before you realise it
• Why many queer women learn to stay quiet, edit themselves, or minimise
• The difference between performing in therapy and embodying change
• Addiction and disconnection as survival strategies rather than character flaws
• What it means to relate to yourself differently after trauma
• Choosing your life direction without denying what happened to you
• Reclaiming self worth after years of internalised beliefs

If you want to connect with me, Leanne, therapist and the founder of Braver Women and other queer women who are on their healing journey, then join the Braver Women Community today - I give you access to a generous amount of materials, insights, member only videos and discussions that aren't shared anywhere else. Many members have found it life changing and the best thing about it, it's always free. Every question is always answered with the same care and support that I show my clients:

The Braver Women Community

If you prefer to watch this episode then head on over to YouTube and you can see there - Click here

If you would like to have a chat of have a suggestion for a podcast episode that you'd like me to cover then go ahead and send me a message at: info@braverwomen.com

Until next time, remember -Bravery isn't a leap. It's built through small deliberate steps. And when you're ready to take yours, you know where to find me.

Leanne.