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.

Connect with Leanne:

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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.

Content Note Prior to Listening:
This episode includes discussion and references to childhood sexual abuse and suicidal thoughts. Please listen with care and pause whenever you need.

In this deeply personal episode of The Braver Women® Show, Leanne shares a conversation that reveals the quiet power of a specialised therapeutic relationship designed to reach places ordinary approaches often can’t.

Ally, a remarkable woman from the north of England, speaks openly about the childhood sexual abuse she endured and the decades of shame, anxiety, and 'otherness' that followed.
After years of searching for something that could truly touch the depth of her pain, Ally found in her work with Leanne the level of safety and structure needed for profound healing.
Within that carefully held space she discovered the courage to face experiences she once believed would define her forever.

Ally now calls this experience “the best thing I’ve ever done in my life,” and offers her story as a gift to any woman who needs to know that the shame they carry was never theirs to begin with.

This episode explores:
• How childhood trauma silently shapes identity and self worth
• Why shame feels permanent - but isn’t
• How healing becomes possible when safety, responsibility, and a deeply committed therapeutic relationship come together

It’s an unpolished, profoundly human conversation about trauma, resilience, and the life changing impact of a therapeutic relationship unlike anything Ally had experienced before.

If this episode helps you, please share it with someone who might need hope today and leave a review to help more lesbian and queer women find these powerful conversations.

info@braverwomen.com

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What does it really take to come out later in life, when you're married, a mother, and terrified of breaking everything you've built?

In this powerful episode of The Braver Women Show, Nichole shares her raw, honest journey of coming out at 50 after decades of hiding her truth.

From growing up in a conservative religious environment in Utah, to the fear of disappointing her family, to the moment she finally had the conversation with her mother she'd avoided for years, this is the story of what it means to let go of the life you were told to live and choose authenticity instead.

Nichole worked with me for 3 months in the Braver Women therapy programme, where she dismantled the fear, shame, and silence that had kept her stuck for decades. She didn’t just come out. She finally came home to herself.

If you’re tired of hiding, afraid of what coming out might cost you, or unsure if it’s too late to choose yourself, this episode is for you.

Ready to start your own journey?

https://braverwomen.com/
Join the Braver Women Facebook community and take your first step toward living with passion, purpose and pride: Click Here

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Dip your toe in and get the Braver Women Journal for LGBTQ+ Women - The 6 Step Daily Method to Transform Your Confidence - Available on Amazon Worldwide

What if everything you believed about who you had to be, strong, self sufficient and always in control was actually keeping you stuck? How much joy does that leave for you in your life?

In this raw and powerful episode, I sit down with child centred councillor Suzy, a woman who, approaching 60, made the decision to stop surviving and finally let go to start healing.

Suzy grew up in the 1970s and '80s, a time when being gay meant staying silent. She worked in the corporate capital of banking in London and this reinforced the shame and the silence. That silence left emotional marks: anxiety, shame, people pleasing, and the constant sense of needing to earn her place. Even after building a life with her wife, the impact of those early years lingered.

When Suzy came to work with me in therapy, she was burned out, anxious, and disconnected from her own needs. Together, we unpacked the survival strategies that had helped her get through life but were now keeping her stuck.

In this episode, Suzy shares:

• How anxiety and emotional control became her default

• The invisible cost of always being the strong one

• Why rest felt unsafe and emotional vulnerability felt impossible

• The deep patterns of people-pleasing and self-abandonment

• What changed when she finally put herself at the centre of her healing

Suzy’s story will resonate deeply with queer women who’ve spent years trying to keep it together while silently struggling. Her transformation shows that even after decades of carrying the past, it is possible to create a new emotional reality with the right support.

Links & Resources:
→ Join the Braver Women community
→ Learn more about the Braver Breakthrough™ Therapy Programme
→ Work with me directly - Book your consultation here

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Ever feel like no matter what you do, you end up back in the same place?

Same doubts. Same fears. Same patterns that leave you questioning yourself.

In this episode, we get into the real reason it happens and why it’s not about willpower or working harder.

We’ll talk about survival strategies that once protected you but are now keeping you stuck in cycles you’re ready to break.

If you’re tired of feeling like you're living on repeat with patterns that aren't helping you in your life or your relationships anymore, this is where something different can finally start for you.

Come and join us in the worlds premier hub for therapeutic content and personal growth for LGBTQ+ women

www.braverwomen.com

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Most lesbian and queer women aren’t walking around saying, “I feel shame.”
They’re saying, “I don’t feel good enough.”
“I overthink everything.”
“I’m scared to be fully myself - even now.”

In this powerful and personal episode, I take you deep into the hidden layers of internalised shame - what I call the master emotion. It’s not loud. It doesn’t announce itself. But it silently shapes everything from your self talk to your style choices, your anxiety, and even your attachment patterns.

I break down how shame gets encoded in your nervous system as a child, how it fuses with your queer identity, and how it’s been running the show without you realising it. This episode includes my own story - growing up queer in a strict religious home, the emotional fragmentation that followed, and what I’ve learned through years of therapeutic work with LGBTQ+ women around the world.

We’ll unpack:

• Why anxiety is often shame in disguise

• The difference between guilt and shame (and how most of us get it wrong)

• How people-pleasing, perfectionism, and fear of rejection are survival strategies

• The concept of double internalisation and how your nervous system stacks risk

• How to begin softening shame’s grip and reconnect with your real self

If you’ve ever struggled with not feeling enough, hiding parts of yourself, or feeling emotionally off even after coming out, this might be the episode that finally gives you the language and clarity you’ve been searching for.

It’s not a quick fix.
But it might just be the beginning of something real for you

🔗 Join us in the Braver Women Facebook group if you’re ready to learn to start showing up as the real you, not the you you've been thinking you need to be.

www.braverwomen.com