Deciding to Heal: How a Widow Got Her Groove Back

Rosemary Mupambwa is a courageous woman who got tired of crying herself to sleep after her husband’s death in 2000. Ultimately, she realized that crying about her situation as a single parent and a widow was self-destructive. Furthermore, Rosemary never received an apology from the people that caused her grief. Her book, Exhume or Heal, A Widow’s Memoir, Getting Her Groove Back, became Rosemary’s healing manual. Now Rosemary is on a mission to help women heal from their grief and trauma from their past, broken relationships. Also, she helps them get back into the dating scene with a bang after a long dry spell. 

 

Episode Highlights:

  • First, Rosemary shares that she was married for nearly 12 years before her husband was taken away from her.
  • Furthermore, she became widowed when she was in her late 30s with young children.
  • Rosemary and her husband were lecturers at a college and her husband had a business.
  • Consequently, she went from three incomes to one after his death.
  • Next, Rosemary talks about the times that she really missed her husband: for example when her children graduated from college.
  • Unfortunately, the circumstances surrounding the death of her husband led Rosemary to experience betrayal and a feeling of abandonment.
  • Also, her husband’s family turned their back on her.
  • Her father sold some of his goats to help Rosemary out financially.
  • Rosemary’s father passed away two years later and her in-laws did not support her.
  • Wanting revenge was causing Rosemary pain.
  • In addition, she suffered from health issues.
  • Her husband’s family changed her husband’s death certificate to “divorced”.
  • When her husband passed away, Rosemary was out of town attending her brother’s funeral.
  • Eventually, Rosemary moved from Africa to the United States and then to Canada.
  • Next, Rosemary explains the challenges she had in getting her children to move from Africa to live with her in Canada.
  • To save enough money to bring her children to Canada, Rosemary had to work three jobs.
  • Also, she went to college to get a degree so she could get a better job.
  • Rosemary lost her mom to cancer and then her youngest brother in February 2019.
  • She was in shock and denial about the death of her brother.
  • One of her friends in Canada invited her to a retreat for women and reluctantly, she attended.
  • The retreat was her turning point.
  • Writing her book was healing.
  • And, she realized healing is a choice.
  • Next, Rosemary shares some relationship advice.
  • Looking for love after a dry spell is challenging for women and Rosemary explains why.
  • Next, Rosemary explains her term “dating smart”.
  • Dating from a desperate mode will not result in a good outcome.
  • Then, Rosemary explains how a woman can get a man to respect her.
  • Ultimately, Rosemary hung onto her pain for nearly 19 years before deciding to forgive and heal.
  • Finally, it’s up to the individual to make the decision to heal.

Resources Mentioned: 

Click Here for the Transcription

[00:00:00] It doesn’t matter where you have been. It doesn’t matter what you’ve gone through. It doesn’t matter what other people have told you. You can always change your life. It’s never too late to start again. I’m almost 60 right now, and I have found love again. I have gone back into the dating scene after a long, long, long dry spell.

Oh, so it’s never, yeah, it’s never too late to start anything new, and it’s never too late to open new doors for your life.

Welcome to the Onward Podcast. This is Emily Harmon, your host. Today I’m interviewing Rosemary Mambo. And boy do I love hosting this podcast because I get to meet people from all over the world. Rosemary lives in Canada now, [00:01:00] but she’s from Zimbabwe and she’s a relationship coach. When I think back on my relationships, I think there’s many times I could have used, uh, Rosemary’s help.

Rosemary is that courageous woman who got tired of crying herself to sleep after losing her husband in 2000. She saw that crying about her situation as a single parent and a widow was a self-destructive behavior, and she wanted revenge, but she never got the platform to get an apology from the people that caused her grief.

So she decided to write a book, which became her healing manual. It’s called Exhume, or Heal a Widow’s Memoir, to Getting Her Groove Back. Now, Rosemary’s on a mission to help women heal from their grief and trauma. From their past broken relationships and she helps them get back into the dating scene after a long dry spell with a bang to date, smart and to be love magnets and to find the love they have [00:02:00] always wanted.

Let’s get to the interview. Rosemary, welcome to the Onward Podcast. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. This is gonna be, well, I don’t know. It’s gonna be a little bit of a tough interview based on what we’re discussing. You wrote a book, exhume or Heal a Widows memoir, getting her, yeah. Groove Back, which is free.

Cool. I wanna hear how you got your groove back. I know you went through it. Difficult time. Yeah, I, I see your book and I looked it up on, um, Amazon. I saw you have a workbook too. Yeah. Yeah. So this is, so that’s really good. Yeah. Yeah. That’s awesome. So yeah, it’s, um, and with exercises that people can go through to help them Yes.

As they, yeah. Mm-hmm. And what I read too, you had some good reviews on there for your book, and I read that it’s not just for widows, it’s for anybody who’s had a loss and is grieving, like a breakup, but with a boyfriend or a girlfriend or mm-hmm. A divorce or something like that, [00:03:00] right? Yes. Yes. It’s, yeah.

Well, can you, uh, tell us your, you know, start off with telling us your story. Like I said, this will just be a conversation and I’ll probably ask you questions along the way, but I know, uh, I know I’m interested in hearing your story and so are the Onward podcast listeners. Okay. Uh, thank you Emily, for having me on your platform.

I was married for almost 12 years before my husband was taken away from me, and you know, the day when I married him, I said I do. And I thought it was going to be for life. You know, I never thought, um, that statement would come haunting me 12 years later. And the thing that really baffled me is, um, how young both of us were.

My youngest child was only five years old. My oldest was 12, my son was nine. And to be widowed at that age, I was in my late [00:04:00] thirties. And being left with young children like that. My husband also had, um, a business, an engineering business. Both of us were, were college le lecturers at the same college, but he also had, uh, assigned hustle an engineering business.

So we came from three incomes to one income. Wow. And it was tough. Yeah, it was tough. And you know, those days, the benefits. Would take almost a year before they were released. His benefits were only released 18 months. 18 months after he died. Wow. So you, because you were living in Zimbabwe, right? Yeah. Yes.

When that happened. Yeah. And I know even with, uh, when I told you before we started the interview that my former husband died, my children’s father died. Yeah. And that was in 2019 December. And there’s still some money I’m working on getting. Mm-hmm. So it, it just, You know, all the phone calls that you have to make and the time it [00:05:00] takes.

And then for me, I still get mail addressed to him and it’s like a slap in the face every time because it’s like, don’t you? He’s not here anymore. I know, it’s, yeah, that’s the toughest part, part, like for me right now, you know, I’m still using his last name because after he died I had to leave the country.

And it was just too expensive and too much of a hassle for me to change back to my maiden name. So imagine I’m still called

for 20. Aw. It’s hard. It’s hard. I mean, I guess it gets a little easier with time. I don’t know what you think, but I mean, there’s still, you don’t cry every second or whatever, but yeah, and it was only my, he was my former husband, but still there was a close bond there, so I know it’s very hard. I’m sorry.

Yeah. Well, thank you. Yeah, because the thing is, you know, when you lose a [00:06:00] spouse, it doesn’t matter whether you were divorced. Or you were still married. The fact that you shared a life together, and especially when there’s children involved is tough. You can’t just cut off the strings just like that. No, it’s a process.

It’s a process. Even for me, 20 years later, there are times when I wish she was around, especially when kids are going through tough times or when the children have have graduated. Like when my son graduated. Yeah. It hit me really hard when he was walking to the stage and I just broke down crying. Yeah.

It’s making me cry, thinking about it. Yeah, I know that was hard cause like we should be here. Yeah. You know? And um, the other thing also that made me cry was, uh, I saw other parents coupled up congratulating their children. The boys, the daddies were giving these big hugs to their boys, and I [00:07:00] was just there as a single parent.

It hit me harder than I thought, and that’s the day when I thought, you know, if you were here, you would be seeing your son walking the stage. Even the day when both my girls I graduated as well. I would just wish, I wish you were here to see what your kids are doing. So it’s moments. Yeah. Yeah. Or to be there to walk your daughter down the aisle.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Like right now, you know, the other thing also that I miss is that like, who is going to talk to my girls about a guy treating you like a pin and who is going to walk them down the aisle, you know? Yeah. My son’s getting married this August, and I think you just prepared me for that. I think so.

Thank you. Because you kind of mentally prepared me and had me think, I mean, I can think, you know, he’s not gonna be there, but, or really put myself in that situation. Yeah. My daughter’s there. My son’s there. My son’s getting married, [00:08:00] and his dad isn’t there to see it. To see it. It is heartbreaking. Yeah.

It’s never easy, you know, I guess you just learn to live with it. But it’ll go away. So you said you saw that crying about your situation as a single parent and a widow was self-destructive behavior and you, you wanted revenge and you never got a platform to get an apology from the people that caused you grief.

Yeah. I don’t know if you wanna talk about that at all. Yeah. There’s the constances that surrounded the death of my husband. I felt like my husband was taken away from me if he had died of natural causes. Probably I was going to handle it a little different. I faced a lot of betrayal from people that were supposed to be close to me at the funeral.

They promised that, you know, we are going to be with you. We are not going to abandon you. But less than a week after his funeral, the same people that had stood up [00:09:00] among my friends and my family promising to be there for me, they turned their back on me. And they started betraying me. So I had to learn to fight for my children.

I had to learn to fight for me. That’s when, you know, I started thinking, no matter how hard I’m going to continue crying for the death of my husband, this crying is not going to bring me food on the table. Nobody helped me to send my children to school. They were aware that I had, uh, reduced from three incomes to one income, but nobody.

Came forward to help me out. My eldest daughter was supposed to go to boarding school to do grade eight, which is form one back in Africa. Everybody knew. So the only people that came forward was my sister and my dad. My dad had to sell some of his goats at home in the village and brought me some money to buy, uh, some uniforms for my eldest [00:10:00] daughter and some food and some pocket money for her to, to take.

So when I say crying about my pain was self destructive and, uh, seeking revenge didn’t work cause I didn’t get the platform was. For the longest time, you know, I held onto, onto the unforgiveness. Those people that had betrayed me, I felt I had to cause them pain somehow. But unfortunately, they never gave me a platform because they just vanished in thin air.

They never came to visit me. They blocked their alliance. I didn’t know where they were and it was hard for me to even go to their homes cause I wasn’t sure how they were going to treat me. My dad passed away two years later and I expected them to come and support me through the death of my dad. And they didn’t come.

They didn’t even send their condolences. But these are friends of yours? [00:11:00] No, these are my in-laws. Your in-laws. I see. Yeah, I see. So it was tough for the longest time I really wanted to revenge. I wanted to cause them pain so much. Cause every time. When I thought about it and I would ask myself, what did I do wrong To deserve such betrayal, you guys promised that you are going be there for me.

But even the my father, you can’t even come to pay your condolences. You know, but did you discover that wanting revenge and whole that was really causing you pain? Yes, it was. Let it go. Mm-hmm. It was, yeah. Cause for the longest time, Emily, I suffered from serious high blood pressure and the times I had reputations cause of, you know, the anger that I had.

Mm-hmm. I felt that why, why me? Mm-hmm. What had I done to deserve such? Such treatment [00:12:00] people that were supposed to be there for me, and they were accusing me of a lot of things that I didn’t even do. I had to fight for my kids. I had to fight for the property that my husband and myself had. And they accumulated and it was that bad that, you know, they even decided to change his, his debt certificate divorced when I was Did you get along well when you were married with them?

Yes. You know, I thought everything was okay. There were people that were living in their homes whenever would go and visit them, and I thought we were family. Even at the funeral, the even studio. Yeah. Promised my family, my dad that you know what? We are going to be with you, Rosemary. Don’t worry. We know the kids are young.

We are going to help you with everything. Oh. But a week later, that’s when I discovered that they’d, uh, changed the death certificate. Cause when my husband passed away, I was actually in [00:13:00] Harari, which is uh, the capital city. My eldest daughter had gone for interview to go into Form one, which is grade eight here, and my husband actually passed away when I was not there.

So they are the ones that had access to all the documents from the hospital. So when I came, it was, uh, yeah. He passed away on on Sunday. On a Sunday, and I was in Aari, which is almost about 300 something kilometers from where we lived. And also that same weekend was the weekend for the memorial service of my eldest brother.

We had died in a car accident. Oh my God. Yeah. So it was like a double blow. I was away one because you know, I had to go. With my daughter. And two, I was also attending the memorial service for my brother was dead. But whether they took that to heart or whether they were accusing me of not caring for my [00:14:00] husband enough that I turned my bank on him and decided to, to attend to my family issues, I have no idea.

Cause I even asked them, why are you treating me like this? Is it because I was away when my husband died? And they didn’t answer me. So it was those things that, you know, how can you go to the extent of taking a death certificate and putting divorce when you know that there’s a legal wife who has three children.

So at some point you had to realize, look, they’re not gonna change. Yeah. And all this misery I’m going through is killing me because my blood pressure’s high. Yeah, it’s stressing me out. Mm-hmm. So you finally, something was the breaking point for you to say, I’m done with this, I’m gonna figure out how to get my groove back.

Yeah. It took me a long time because to be honest, I thought maybe one day things were going to turn around and even the first time when I, [00:15:00] when I went back home after 12 years, I visited them, but, um, we had nothing to talk about. We just, we went back. Cause you moved to the United States, right? Yeah. And then you when you went back.

Yeah. Yeah. So we had nothing to talk about because when I left my children, they were even accusing me of abandoning my children. And I’m like, when I went to the US I didn’t have a visa for the children, but then it was tough getting a visa. I only managed to get a visa for me. And I thought, you know, when I get to the US I will work and save enough money to get my children, but the immigration in the US.

It’s tough. I spent two and a half years trying to get my children and I paid almost 18,000 US dollars. Just the lawyer fees, the court fees, and I couldn’t. Yeah. And then, you know, that’s when the Canadian government and the US government had an agreement. To [00:16:00] exchange professionals from certain African countries, and Zimbabwe was among one of them.

So that’s how I managed to come into into Canada. Wow. So that’s where you live now, in Canada? Yeah. Yeah. So right now I’m here in Canada and my kids are here now. They’re here now. Where did you, when you left them back in Zimbabwe, were they with your parents or something? Yeah, they were with my mom. My mom and my brother-in-law and my sister-in-law.

So they were looking after them, but I had to move my kids into boarding schools. So they would come to their homes during the holidays, but during school days they were away. They were in boarding schools. Yeah. Um, that must have been so I can’t imagine that leaving my kids, everything that you went through, my husband passed away, moving to another country, trying to get my kids there and all those legal fees and everything.

My heart goes out to you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. [00:17:00] Yeah, so that’s where, that’s how many Americans can’t even, can’t even fathom that. Yeah. I just for granted. Yeah, it’s tough and I always hear, you know, when the residents of a certain country, when they always assume that when immigrants come, they are there for handouts.

No, yeah, we’re not there for handouts. You know, Emily, I had to work three jobs. In order to save enough money to bring my kids over. And, um, the credentials that I had from my country, from Zimbabwe and also from the, from the uk, they were not, uh, accredited. So I had to go back to university. Imagine. I had to send myself back to university for four years, no for two years.

First to do a degree in social work, no, a diploma in social work so that I could get a better job, and then I send myself back again to university for four more years. To do a degree in [00:18:00] sociology. That’s amazing. That’s amazing. So when did you decide to write your book? I wrote my book in July. That’s when I, uh, I started writing my book.

But the idea to write my book came after my youngest brother had a heart attack in Zimbabwe. And he dropped dead. The only thing I got was a phone call on a Friday night that my brother had passed away, and I’m like, how can he die? I spoke to him on Wednesday. He’s not dead. So just that shock again of losing another family member.

And my mom had also passed, passed away in 2017. She had cancer and I looked after a year in, in Canada. And um, yeah, I stayed with her for almost eight years here before she passed away. So she had passed away in 2017. I also had lost my other brothers as well. [00:19:00] I lost all my b my, my best friends and now losing my mom.

And the only other relative that I had, my brother, he was, he, he was dead. So it was like, you know, I was left with no other sh uh, shoulder to cry on. And now I am the eldest member of my whole family. So it’s all those responsibilities, you know, because my brother was at home, so everything that the other siblings that are still in Zimbabwe, he, he was dealing with them.

So when I got a call and when I went, when I flew to Zimbabwe for his funeral, ah, I was just in shock until I came back. And what year was that? 2019. In February 19. Okay. Yeah. Wow. So when I got back I was away from work for a while and cause I just couldn’t get, I couldn’t wrap around my mind and my emotions around the death of my brother.

I [00:20:00] was still in shock and in denial and it took me a while even to leave my house. To go to church and meet other other ladies. So one of my friends here in Canada said, uh, you know what, Ross, you have been so isolated for the longest while there’s going to be a woman retreat in three weeks. So it was in the beginning of May.

So she said, um, Yeah, you need to go to that retreat. And I started giving all excuses, I cannot go there. You know, I cannot drive. I’m too tired. And, and she said, I’m coming by your house. I’m picking you up, and I’m going do the driving. And then I also live for other excuses. I don’t have money. What a good friend.

And she said, I’m not buying into that. I’m coming to pick you up. I will drive. The only thing that I want you to pay is the retreat fees. So we went for that retreat and that was maintaining point. Cause when [00:21:00] we got there on the first nights, people were praying and talking about their history and why they had come to the retreat.

And so when it was maintained, I said, you know what, I have lost so many family members. My brother just died this February. And to be honest, I don’t even know why I am here. Cause I’m just, I’m just numb. I’m just numb. I’m confused. I just don’t wanna talk to people. So if you see me sitting in a corner, this is me.

And, um, I’ll never forget the, the words that the pastor, they said, she said, rose. So you are going to isolate yourself and you’re going to be grieving when you are supposed to be here to start your healing journey. And I said, well, I dunno how. And she said, well, the fact that you are here, I promise you this is the beginning of your healing journey.

And from that day, you know, the following day, she put us in groups, those people that had lost husbands [00:22:00] family members to be in one group and then those that were divorced and so on. And so in the groups, people started sharing. Everybody was crying after everybody shared. It was my turn. And I remember I just started whipping for the first time.

I broke down, like crying my heart out. And I hadn’t done that. For the longest time because I was really trying to be strong for everybody, my, my siblings, my children, and that day something just hit me. I couldn’t talk. I was just sobbing. And that’s when I decided, you know what? I’m holding so much pain, I need to put it somewhere.

That’s the day I decided to to write my book, and this is why. Now I also run retreats because I got my healing from a retreat. Wow. That’s an awesome story. What a good friend to make you go say no, not not taking no for an [00:23:00] answer and Yeah. See you was crying. Yeah. And crying. Your heart out is healing in the long run.

Right. You’ve gotta cry. You’ve gotta let it all out. You can’t keep shoving that pain down. One of my past podcast guest talked about that if you shove your pain and all your emotions down to the basement, yeah. They just go down there and they lift weights. And they get stronger when they come out. Get stronger, harder.

Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, they get, then they erupt like for 10. Right. Yeah. So your book, I can imagine how helpful it is exhume or heal a widow’s memoir and how you got, you know, to getting your groove back. So you, it’s a story of your healing journey and trying to help other people with the aim of helping other people too.

And I think by sharing your story, just like you said at that retreat, everyone sharing their story probably helped you realize that you weren’t alone. Yes. And that other people have been through this and you’re not the only one. And that I think that makes you [00:24:00] feel better, not less lonely. Yes, it did.

And when other women were also sharing their stories as widows, having to fight for their children in court and having in-laws coming to take their property and stuff like that, you know, that also resonated with me. To your point, I thought, you know what? I think my problem is much lighter than them. I think I can handle my problem better than getting a new problem.

So this is where the title of the book originated. Exhume or Heal, do you want to exhume your pain? All you want to heal? You want to exhume your past to continue suffering like what you were doing or you heal and go forward or do you decision? Yeah. Do you exhume the of your husband? What is he going to do now?

He’s dead and. If you continue crying it’s grave, which what? Which is what I [00:25:00] was doing. Yeah. I was crying every night calling his name, like, where are you? Why did you leave? Me and the children? But that didn’t help my pain. That didn’t help me in any way. So writing the book, Exum, heal, it gave me the strength that I never knew I had and healing’s a choice you say in what you submitted to me, but in order to move forward and to be happy and to find love again, you have to heal.

Yes. You have to heal. Yeah. Because even before I started my proper healing journey, I went into relationships. For the wrong reason. I went into relationships cause I was lonely and I had this big void in me that I thought, you know, getting another guy into my life was going to fill that void. And I had so much pain and I thought having a man with me is going to give me that comfort that I was looking for, but I was wrong.

It actually caused me. More pain because these [00:26:00] two relationships, they caused me even more pain on top of the pain that I had. I thought, yeah, what did I do? What did I do? And that’s when I decided to become a relationship coach. Cause I thought, you know what? Let me find out why this keeps happening to me.

I’m sure there’s nothing wrong with these guys. I am the problem here. Why am I attracting these, these guys that are causing me pain, pain after pain? Well, that’s pretty good that you recognize, you know, I have, I have a, a coach who said, when you point the finger at somebody, you’ve got three fingers pointing back at you.

Yeah. So that’s really good that you. Started to look at yourself, cuz a lot of people just go through life pointing the fingers at everybody else without looking at themselves. And I think it’s important, like you said, you’re a coach. It’s important to work with a coach because they can see your blind spots and I’m sure you’ve realized this, you can see blind spots in other people, but you really can’t see them [00:27:00] yourself.

See? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So why is finding love after a drives. Fail challenging to so many women. Is that why? Because you’re looking for Yes. A love to fill your hole that you’ve gotta fill your, yes to fill your void. And the other thing also, when you have been in a long-term relationship with somebody and you are certainly single and going back into the dating scene, it’s a challenge in that the dating world is changing every day.

Yeah. During my time, We never used to go online to find men. Right? You would? Yeah. I met my husband in a grocery store. So here when you walk into Walmart or when you walk into. It’s very hard for a guy just to approach you and say, can I take you out for a coffee? It’s, it’s tough. In Africa, yeah, it’s easy cause guys have, have the courage women.

[00:28:00] But here I find that the men. They, yeah, they don’t have the courage to approach you cause they don’t know how you are going to react. So most of the times, even if the guys I knew you, the woman have to make a move and show him that you know what? It’s okay for you to talk to me. So for me it was a challenge because growing up.

We were told never to approach a guy, you let me say approach you, right? That’s what I learned. Yeah. So you’re saying in here that finding love can be as easy as a b abc if you do the science to it, you gonna give any tips on the science? Yeah, it can be as easy as A, B, C, D, as I said. As long as you have healed from your past Uhhuh.

Cause the thing is, if you still have a bleeding heart, you are not going to be good to anybody, even yourself, right? Because one, you are a broken soul who is looking for love for [00:29:00] the wrong reasons. Two, you are going to attract the wrong people because you have all this negativity that’s surrounding you.

Three, when you look at men, because they’re so lonely and desperate to have somebody, you are going get the first guy that comes to you and for a date, and there you, you’ll be working so hard to keep that guy in your life. And so he is going to give you conditions for you to stay with him instead of the other way around.

Yeah. Yeah. You can see that. Yeah. Uhhuh. So now what I do is when I meet with women, I ask them for their story. How come you are single at this age? And then they’ll say, oh yeah, my husband passed away so many years ago. Okay. How many relationships have you been into? 4, 5, 4, 6. Okay. Why do you think all these relationships were not working out?

And then most of them, they always start to blame [00:30:00] the guys. Oh yeah, the guy was controlling this and then there, and then I will know that. Mm-hmm. Yes, the guy was controlling, but you also took a part in that. Relationship. Cause instead of you leaving that guy, you decided to hang onto him. Right? And the more, the more you hang onto this guy, the more clingy and needy you are going be.

And down the line. You are going to be counting all the time, the months, the years that we have wasted with this guy. And it’ll be more difficult for you to leave because you are like, oh yeah, you know what? I’ve already invested two years into this relationship. I can’t really leave him now. Uh, it’ll change.

What I found out, Emily, is you can never change a man. No, no. The only person, yeah, you can never change a man. A man will change when he’s in love. You’ll change for a woman that he loves, one, two, the only person that can [00:31:00] change a man is a mom. When she’s changing his diaper is a baby. That’s all

I love that. But when he’s an adult, he knows how to pay his own bills. You can never change it. Never. Oh, I know, I know. From experience.

Oh my gosh. I can tell you’re a good relationship coach. Thank you. So, um, yeah, what is dating smart and being dating material? Yeah. When I talk about dating smarts is, um, Will give you tools in order for you to recognize the red flags in order for you to start dating for the good, for the right reasons.

We’ll also make you make sure that you realize that you are not going to date from a desperate mode because when you are desperate, [00:32:00] To fill in that void because you are lonely, then you are going to exude this energy that you are needy and clingy, and you’ll do anything to keep that guy even sleeping with him on the second date, which you are not even supposed to do because this guy is supposed to earn your respect.

But a lot of women, they make that mistake because they think, okay, if I sleep with him on the second or third date, then I’m going to keep him. But the only thing that’s going to happen is you are going to be emotionally involved with this guy, but this guy is already somewhere else cause you are probably not what he expected.

He doesn’t know you. You don’t know him. And already you have that emotional connection. And for you now to leave this guy is tough for you cause you have that emotional connection already. And for men, it’s easy for them because you know how they can just shut the door and [00:33:00] leave. But for women, because we are just in nature as.

By nature, it’s tough for us, you know? Yeah. And then this is when, when this guy breaks up with you, then you become obsessive. Cause, yeah, I slept with him. How could he do this to me? But see, guess what? You are the one that agreed to sleep with the guy. And the thing that I always tell my ladies is I’ll tell them that, you know what?

You are the queen in this equation. You hold the cards. If you tell him no, he’s going to respect you. If he loves you enough, he’ll respect you. But if you say yes on his conditions, it means that that relationship is going to be based on his conditions, his terms, not yours. Woo. So much wisdom there. Yeah, that’s really good wisdom.

Yeah. So that’s dating smart. So once you go in there knowing who you are, knowing [00:34:00] yourself where that, you know what? I’m a single, powerful, beautiful, sexy woman. I’m not going to let any man mess around with this. Then yes, men will respect you. You go in knowing what you want. Yeah. Yeah. Not waiting for him to show you.

No. You go in and you tell him what you’re looking for, right? Yeah. Not waiting to see what he wants, and then being that. Yeah. Being that it’s not you. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Is the other way around. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. So how long have you been a relationship coach? For? Almost four years now. Wow. That’s awesome.

I can tell you help a lot of people. Yeah. Yeah. I can tell. Yeah. So your book, you also have a workbook that goes along with your book. Yes. In, in your book, cuz it’s about how you get your groove back. Do you talk about dating in your book? Yes, I do. Yeah. I also talk about dating and how to [00:35:00] heal from your pain and then transition into, into dating.

Okay. Yeah. So this is, where are you dating? Dating material comes in. I see. It’s all covered in that workbook. Yeah, it’s all covered in, that’s good. Yeah. I think I’m gonna get that book. Actually. Wish I had already gotten it. I interviewed so many people and it’s really hard to keep up with reading everyone’s.

Book, right. For the interview and everything. I do the best I can, but I’m gonna have to look at this one and, uh, yeah, if I can learn some things from it. So yeah, there’s lots to learn. There’s lots to learn. Yeah. Yeah. Not put a link to it. It’s in, uh, Amazon, on Amazon. Right. Yes. And then you’re, and you have another book Resetting Your Life.

Oh, that’s the handbook, right? That goes with the Resetting Your Life Handbook. Yeah. Oh, that’s another one. Yeah. So this is Triumph. Yeah. So this is resetting your life. So this one helps you with your mindsets. Awesome. Yeah. And to you. [00:36:00] So this one is just filled with the healing therapies. It tells you that you know what?

Healing is your choice. It’s up to you. You know, I can sit here and preach to you that you need to heal, but it’s up to you to make that decision to heal. Yeah, definitely. What does it take for someone to make a decision to heal? Is it different for everybody or, yeah, it’s different for everybody because like for me, I discovered that holding onto the pain was not getting me anywhere.

And then I had that wake up call when I went to, to the retreat cause the pastor there said, okay, how long have you been holding onto this pain? And I told you, I think it was almost 19 years, 17, 18 years, holding onto that pain because I wanted revenge so bad, like so bad. But I never got the platform. I never got the platform.

And the people, they never apologized. No matter how many [00:37:00] people I told that they need to apologize, they never bashed them. So she asked me, have you forgiven them? Have you forgiven them? Yeah, yeah, I have forgiven them. So she took me on on a forgiveness journey and she said, Ross, this unforgiveness is killing you, not them.

Look at you. Yeah, look at you now. And she, she started asking me about my appetites, my sleeping pattern, my social skills. And I then discovered that I had become very socially awkward. I didn’t know how to interact with other people. Cause I, yeah, it was just too much for me. Cause every time I would start talking about it, I was like a broken record always.

Talking about what they did to me, but it wasn’t doing me any good. I wasn’t moving forward emotionally. I was still stuck in that. Yeah, that’s when you know she, she told me that it’s up to you. It’s [00:38:00] up to you to heal and it’s up to you to forgive because forgiveness, it’s not for them, it’s for you. Once you forgive those people that have helped you, you feel like.

These thousand tons of breeds have been lifted off your shoulders. I started to breathe after that retreat. I didn’t realize how much I was stifling my, my growth, my wellbeing and everything. But after that retreat, my goodness, I felt, why didn’t I forgive these people years ago? What was I doing? But you know what, what you went through that journey that you went through.

Is what prepared you to be the coach, the good coach that you are now, so, mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. There’s a reason. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, I guess there’s always, uh, a reason for everything because yeah, I guess if I hadn’t gone through what I went through, I wouldn’t be where I am today because right now, you know, I’m [00:39:00] able to help women that thought they would never be able to forgive, but I would work with them to a point where, I will leave them.

No option but forgive. So how do people find you? It looks like you’ve got, you’ve got it. Your website, roses life coaching.com, and I’ll put that in the show notes. And then you’ve got a Facebook and it looks like you’ve also got Instagram, tv. Yes, I do. I do have Instagram. Yeah. Yeah. So I’ll put all of that in the show notes and then I’ve got your, your email roses, life coaching gmail.com because you can I’m sure coach people through the internet too, right?

They don’t have to. Yes. Yeah. Come and see you. Yeah. Yeah, we can. So that’s interesting too. You said that you were kind of secluded and socially awkward. You went, you know, after your brother died in 2019, and then you went to that retreat in 20 May of 2019. And then Covid hit yes. And then Covid hit. [00:40:00] Yeah.

So you can stay secluded even longer. Even longer. You know, even longer. Yeah. Yeah. And then the other thing also that I also wanted to add is, um, certified reiki master. So I read energy. I read energy, okay. So most of when I’m talking to my, to my clients, I can tell, you know, the things that they don’t want to share with me, I can feel them.

And I also have a gift of releasing trapped emotions. So what energy are you feeling for me right now? For you It’s, it’s a lot of regrets. There’s things that you think, oh, you know what, I should, yeah. I shouldn’t have done that. Or I wish I had done this earlier. Yeah, that’s true. Because like when you were talking about the how guys don’t change really.

Yeah. You know, because my kid’s dad was verbally abusive and the [00:41:00] one that passed away, but he was nice the whole time. He was sick. But when I was with him, he was verbally abusive and I just, I never left. I just, you know. Yeah. I stayed too long. Mm-hmm. And, um, Thinking that things would change, but they didn’t.

Yeah. Yeah, they didn’t. So it’s okay. It is what it is. Helps me be a better coach now too, so, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what, I’ve also learned that the experiences that we go through will shape the people who we become after that. So when you have gone through, um, you know, some turbulence in your life, it’s up to you how we are going to use that.

Are you going to use that as a lesson or we are going to to use that to be in the victim pity party mode for the rest of you, right? Yeah. So it goes two ways and so this is why I came up with that. Healing is your choice. It’s up to you. It’s up to you. Well, as we wrap this up, any last [00:42:00] bit of advice that you wanna leave with the Onward podcast listeners?

Yeah. What I want to tell, uh, the podcast listeners is, um, it doesn’t matter where you have been. It doesn’t matter what you’ve gone through. It doesn’t matter what are the people you have told you. You can always change your life. It’s never too late to start again. I’m almost 60 right now, and I have found love again.

I have gone back into the dating scene after a long, long, long dry spell, so it’s never, yeah, it’s never too late to start anything new, and it’s never too late to open new doors for your life. And a lot of women, they always tell themselves, oh yeah, the shelf life for dating. You know, it’s as expired as old as I am.

No, everybody needs some T L C. You know, when your kids are grown, then what are you going to do? You are going to be an empty nester. [00:43:00] And then what? Yep. I’m an empty nester, so I recently went, met somebody and went on a date. Yeah. But I could tell that I wasn’t ready. I still had some inner work because I could tell that I would have reverted back to being a chameleon and a pleaser.

Yeah. If people, I caught that. And so I was like, Nope, not ready to date yet, but maybe when I’m 60 like you. I’m turning 58 this year, so maybe two more years. Oh, wow. What? 58? No, you don’t look 60. Thanks Rosemary for being on the Onward podcast. Yeah, no, thank you. Thank you so much, Emily, for having me. It was a pleasure.

I learned from every single one of my Onward podcast guests. Thank you, Rosemary, for everything you taught me during this interview. I really, really enjoyed meeting you and thank you to all of the onward [00:44:00] listening today. I can’t believe it’s been one year since I started the Onward Movement. The Onward Movement is all about embracing authenticity and releasing the fear of judgment so that you can create the life of your dreams with confidence, a life that you love.

For me, and probably for you. Creating a life that I love means being physically fit. And also lately I’ve been learning about mental fitness. I recently participated in a group coaching program with Shazad Shain. Shazad is the author of the New York Times bestseller Positive Intelligence. And when I participated in his program, I was building up my mental strength and I still am through regular short exercises and I kept track of my progress in an app and I worked with a small group of people for accountability where we share what we think and are, we feel and are experiences in practicing mental fitness and how it’s helping [00:45:00] us be.

More and flow with much less negativity throughout the day. I’m so excited that now I get to offer this coaching program to my clients. If you go to my website, emily harmon.com and look for the page on mental fitness, you’ll see how you can sign up. It’s a six week program and it’s life changing. You’ll learn how to easily incorporate mental fitness into your daily life.

Do you feel this way sometimes like. In your work or your personal life, have you ever felt overworked or underappreciated or even guilty or lazy when you tried to relax? Are you constantly thinking about mistakes you made or do you wake up in the middle of the night? Thinking about what could go wrong tomorrow or how you could have handled the particular situation better.

I know I have felt this way, and that’s my inner critic, my judge, and some of my other saboteurs that I learned about in this mental fitness coaching. How would it feel if you were [00:46:00] happier, if you were more in control of your life? And if you could quiet the negative thoughts bouncing around in your head.

This constant self-judgment and negativity really does affect all of us and those around us. And it sometimes feels like we can’t control how we feel or what we think. We surely can’t control what others think or how they feel about us. We will always be judged by others, but I just don’t want to accept that negativity and believe the chatter in my head.

By working on strengthening my mental fitness muscles, I’ve been able to recognize that negativity fairly quickly and then shift to positive thinking. And I’d love to help you do the same. Have a great week onward. Thank you for listening to the Onward Podcast. I really appreciate your support.[00:47:00]