The Brain Pattern That Keeps Ambitious Women Single

How can you be a rockstar at work, run a household, and still find love completely bewildering? If you've ever felt like your love life is a cluttered pantry full of outdated stories and expired patterns, this episode is for you.

I sat down with a powerhouse guest, board-certified integrative Neurosomatic practitioner and identity architect, Riana Malia, to tackle the unconscious patterns that keep high-achieving women single (and what to do about them). We cover why doing more doesn’t work in love, how to break free of old cycles fast, and the simple shift that will change the way you love, lead, and trust yourself. If you’re ready for real clarity and want to stop settling for chicken when you really want ribeye, don’t miss this conversation.

What You’ll Learn

1. Why more “doing” doesn’t fix your love life
Discover why high-achieving women get stuck in love even when they’re unstoppable everywhere else and what truly changes the game.

2. The 10%/90% shift for crystal clarity
Understand why the conscious brain is only 10% of the story, while the unconscious makes up the powerful 90%, shaping your results in love and life.

3. How to clear old stories and expired patterns (for good)
Learn Riana Malia’s “clear to create” methodology so you can stop telling the old story, detox dysfunctional patterns, and make room for extraordinary love.

4. The Clarity Codex: get specific about what you want
Stop second-guessing yourself and learn to build your love “menu” based on your real desires, values, and non-negotiables.

5. How clearing love blocks transforms every relationship
Hear real-world results of this work, not just in romance but with friends, children, coworkers, and most importantly, yourself.

Music by:

Epidemic Sounds

Call to Action:  

What is ONE “expired pattern” from your relationship pantry that you are throwing out today? 👇 Let me know in the comments! Don't forget to take Riana's free ELI assessment linked below!

📕 Resources: 

https://createthebestme.com/ep166

https://rianamalia.com

https://quiz.rianamalia.com

Related Episode:

🎧 Listen to this episode next: 

https://www.buzzsprout.com/1949561/episodes/17901989 

 #CreateTheBestMe #HighAchievingWomen #RelationshipAdvice #SubconsciousHealing #DatingInMidlife #ManifestingLove #NeurosomaticHealing #WomensEmpowerment

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Transcript

0:00

Oh, my goodness, do I have a special episode for you today. We're talking about something a lot of high achieving women secretly wrestle with. Why is it that you can run a team, a company, a calendar, a whole household, but love still feels like the one area you can't figure out if your love life has ever felt like a cluttered pantry full of expired patterns you swore you threw out years ago. Stay with me because my guest today is going to help us clear it fast without spending months unpacking old stories. I'm joined by Riana Malia, a board certified integrative neurosomatic practitioner and identity architect who helps high capacity women stop managing love like a side project and start creating relationships that actually match the life they've built. In this conversation, you'll hear why doing more doesn't fix love. And what does? The 10%, 90% shift that changes everything. And how to get crystal clear on what you want so you stop ordering chicken when you really want ribeye. And the powerful tool Riana uses to help women rebuild trust in themselves quickly. And you'll have to stay till the end because Riana has a special gift. All right, let's get into it now. Riana Malia, welcome to Create the Best Me. I am so excited to have you on the show. Thank you. I'm so thrilled to be here. So before we get into today's exciting conversation, which is something I am passionate about, could you please tell the listeners and viewers a little bit about who Riana is and what she does? So I'm a mama, first and foremost. I'm a wife, two years married to the greatest love of my life, which, after all the craziness, never thought would happen for me. I'm a daughter, a sister, a friend. But professionally, I am a board certified integrative neurosomatic practitioner, which is a lot of words to say that. I work with high capacity women who have success in every area of their life except the thing they want the most, which is extraordinary love. So it's an honor to do the work that I do. And I really created this work for me first. And then it has, you know, just been such an incredible blessing to be able to change so many lives. Yeah. And the reason I say that this is a particular topic that I am passionate about is because I too, was single for a very long time after a bad relationship with my first husband and, and was getting this ready, this close to giving up after I had already done my own personal development work and then decided, let me try, and 15 years later, I'm married to the love of my life and my best friend and I never thought I'd ever get there. We are, we share that. So you work with high achieving women who run large corporations, have successful teams, are, are able to build a strategy, plan, run a successful business, forecast things. Why did they get stumped up when it comes to love? Yeah, so I mean, there's a lot of pieces to that. Right. But a big part of it is identity. So I talk a lot about being an identity architect and we all have identities and things that we're really attached to. And especially for high achieving women, that ability to problem solve and do and fix and, and create is just so part of who we are. But when it comes to relationships, it's really fascinating to see a very common theme where that's the hard part because it, relationships and love is not like, you know, creating your next C suite position or your next merger or you're an entrepreneur, that's, you know, you're starting a new business. And the other part of that is, is that my clients are smart, they're emotionally intelligent, they've done the work, they have the mindset piece down, but it's that underlying the unconscious, subconscious stuff that's running the show. So it's not about doing something or not doing something. There's not, there's not another thing for you to learn or read or do, you know, it's, it's really about underneath what's running the show is the thing that's keeping you from, from having the thing that you want the most. And so it's really important to understand that if we're talking about that if we're looking at thinking about our body as and everything from the neck up is our conscious mind and we use it all day. It's 10%, right? It's our goal setter, which means the rest of our body. The other 90% is the unconscious mind. So if the conscious is our goal setter, the unconscious is the goal getter. It's the operating system. And most importantly, it is the literal library of everything we've ever experienced in our entire life held at a cellular level. So when that's not released properly, and by properly, I mean by not going back into the story and not going back into the pain that caused the trauma in the first place, then we see things show up like anxiety, depression, overwhelm, autoimmune disorders, injury, illness, disease, menopause, weight that we can't release, all the things. And it's just, it's It's a. It's as simple and complex as that. And the beautiful thing is just because it's always been has no bearing on what can be. And this can change in an instant. I know that, like, for me, my biggest hurdle, and I'm just sharing this to see if this is something that you see. Yeah, My biggest hurdle was that I had built my own personal success, had my stuff, my. You know, I have children. Have a. You know, they're adults. They're adults now, but I had children and I was always thinking about them. And then there was this fear. Fear that I'm too smart, they don't like me because I'm smart. Or that if I get involved in someone, how do I know this is the right person? Or how do. Are they seeing me for who I truly am, or are they seeing me for what they could benefit from? Meaning the things that I've accomplished. Yes. And so that piece where you're like, I don't even know if I can trust myself to make that decision, that's such a critical piece to this conversation because along the way we're like, well, I thought I knew and look how that turned out. Right. And so to your point, those, you know, is this. Is this a good relationship? Are. Do they love me for me? Are they going to love me in all of my bigness and. Or am I going to be, you know, made to feel like I'm too much and not enough all at the same time? Right. That's a. Also very common experience. I know I had that experience. So when we're looking at this type of work, so I always say, so my. My methodology, if you will, is called clear to create. And my tagline has always been your very best life. Right. So we're going to clear to create your very best life. But the truth is, and whether we've been friends for 20 minutes or 20 years, that's my wish for you. I want you to live your version of your very best life. And every single one of us has a different version of what that looks like. But you can't just go from past pain, betrayal, a failed relationship or failed business, friendship wounds, childhood stuff. You can't just go from that to living your very best life. It doesn't work that way. So we have to clear before we can create. We have to clear the story to create the life. So often people will say to me, I just want a different story. Like, everything is good except this thing. And so what I say to them is, great, then you have to stop Telling the old one first and foremost. And we have to clear the cycles to create the confidence, that piece of us that doesn't know if we can trust ourselves and if everything in the in life is cyclical. And when we look at like our lives like seven nine year cycles, you're like, oh wow, that's really interesting. Every 7ish years or 9ish years, this thing happens in my life, whether it was around relationships or career or money or health or whatever it is. But we have to clear those cycles so you can ground in again and fall in love with yourself and trust yourself. And we have to clear the patterns to get the partnerships. So we all want fulfilling, genuine, mutually beneficial partnerships, romantically, personally, professionally, with our friends, our children, our family. But if we bring all that old patterning, all the old wiring, all the unconscious, subconscious stuff, we don't get those partnerships. We just continue to get more of the same, which more often than not is what we don't want. And we have to clear the resentment to get the results. So as high achieving women oftentimes like we can feel when there's resistance. So somebody will say to me, you know, I'm looking at this piece, my relationship or my business or my life, and I'm just feeling all of this resistance. And so my question is, okay, but what are you resenting? Because that's the real question underneath the resisting. So we have to clear that so that you can get what you want. And we have to clear the loss to create the love. Even if you ended a relationship that you know was not good for you, you still have some grieving there, you still mourn the loss of what you thought it was going to be for you, your family, etc. And so once we clear those things, then we can create the life and the love that's meant for you. But before we can clear anything, we have to get crystal clear. And this is the biggest thing that I find when I ask people, what do you want? Sometimes they're like, I have no idea. I've been a mama, now my kids are gone, I was a wife and I'm divorced. I this, I have no idea what I actually want for who I am. And the other piece of that is being able to discern who gets the option or the possibility of getting to be in our lives, whether that's a romantic partner, a business partner, friendship. And so we do something and I create called the Clarity Codex and it's your menu. So if we went into a restaurant together and we sat down and the Server came over and said, what would you ladies like? And we're like, well we're thirsty, right? We're parched. And we're going to start with a salad and some protein and some lovely whatever your farm to table vegetables are. And they're like great. And they bring us an iced tea and a Caesar salad and a lovely roasted chicken and some beautiful glazed carrots. And we got exactly what we ordered, 100% what we ordered. What we wanted was a lovely glass of pinot and a perfectly done ribeye and some roasted asparagus and an arugula salad with fresh figs and goat cheese, right? So that level of specificity and clarity we get by doing a values elicitation and non negotiables and desires and creating that menu so that in under a couple of minutes you can meet somebody, have a conversation with them and know if it's a clean yes or a clean no decision for you of even to move forward with any kind of possible relationship. So it takes away the part where we feel like we don't trust ourselves. It's very freeing. But I think the challenge there could be that he's not going to like me or no one's going to accept me because I have all, all these things that I need or I have to have. And it's a matter of understanding whether maybe it's not the right person for you then. Yeah, and a lot of that is story, right? I mean 90% of who we are right now we picked up between 0 and 7. And sometimes you have memory of a circumstance or an instance and sometimes we don't. But like the seven year old, you came home and you got a B on a spelling test and somebody jokingly said, oh, you can do better, I know you can. That's my girl, right? It's like, oh, I have to be the best. I have to earn love. It's, it's these things that get ingrained that the unconscious mind goes, oh, we have to be the best in order to be loved for who we are. Right? And so some of those things then anchor in, that becomes the blueprint of our life. So the high achieving, the overachieving, they have to be the best. The perfectionism, the people pleasing and then that fear that at

3: 12:29

25 in the morning when you're laying there staring at the ceiling thinking, why does everybody else get to have this? What is it about me? You know, and yeah, maybe what if, what if I'm just too picky and what if that's unrealistic? That's all B.S. that's story. You get to have extraordinary love that's worthy of you. You get to be loved and cherished and valued and respected. You get to be this multi hyphenated, multifaceted woman. You get to be the badass businesswoman and still want to be pampered and taken care of. You can be ambitious and soft, you can be all of that. And you can be held and matched and met where you are and to match the life that you've built. You do not need to shrink in order to be loved. How long have you found that it takes women to. Because they've never had the opportunity to do it for themselves. They've done it for their business. And being a mom and being a wife, caregiver, all that stuff. How long become crystal clear as to who am I and what do I want and what do I need? Weeks. We do this work in weeks. It's very fast. So by tapping into that other 90% and that, you know, that intersection of neuroscience and being able to rewire, because we're going to blow out all of that old strategy and neurology and behavior and ways of thinking, we have to replace it with something else, right? Because I think a lot of this work focuses so much on clarity and awareness, which is important. It's the foundation for any kind of growth or transformation or change. But if we don't give you the skills to go with the knowledge, then you just end up in this loop of, great, now I have this. Aha. Now I know this well, what the hell did I do with it? Right? It doesn't really help you. In fact, it's dangerous. It's why so many women will say to me, I've been in therapy for years. I've done all the work, I've done the retreats. I was feeling good, I made progress. And then this thing happened and life came at you because it always will. And then bam. You just reverted way right back to, to 10 years ago. It's because we didn't replace the neurology, the strategy, the behavior. And so by being able to do that in a way where this does. This is not talking about, you know, the story. We're not going to talk about what happened when you were five and your dad and your horrible ex husband. None of that is relevant. In fact, that will keep you stuck, guaranteed, because you're just in it. You're in your story versus being able to be on your story. But with the way that we do this work, it's Weeks, it's not months or years. And I also have a fantastic, It's a very special offer, but it's three days. And we do this combination of this incredibly life changing work where your nervous system and your neurology is no longer available for any of that anymore, but layered in with massage and the beach, like wherever you feel the most, like grounded and happy and every detail is taken care of for you. And that's three days. But yeah, eight, you know, weeks. Eight weeks usually. I think that's amazing. And the reason I say that is because it took me years. Me too. Years. To, to figure out who am I and what do I like and what do I need and what am I looking for in a relationship? You know, a spouse. Because I didn't want a date, I wanted a spouse. If I was going to go out there, I was going to make it something that I wanted and what would I be willing to settle for? And what was my. Totally not going to happen. I mean, that took me years. Yeah, it does. Because traditionally we do what we're told to do, right? We talk about it in therapy, we talk about it with our girlfriends. We, we vision board, we affirm, we do all those things. They all have benefit, don't get me wrong. But after a certain point, every single time you talk about it and you tell the story and you try to unpack something, all you're doing is giving that direction to your unconscious mind that this is what we're focusing on, right? Because if you think about the way that our brains are wired, every day we think between 65,000 and 85,000 thoughts. Thoughts. That's crazy. 90% of those thoughts are recycled, right? They're the same thoughts we thought yesterday and the day before and last week and last month. The, you know, what if I'm too smart and they can't handle that? What if I'm too much? What if it's too late for me? You know, everyone I meet is the same. They seem so great and then they just really want something from me. Like all of those thoughts, right? The problem with that is 75% of those thoughts are negative. And I get a ton of pushback on that because again, my clients are like, oh, no, I'm so good on mindset. But what you don't notice is most of the time you're thinking about all the things you don't want. I don't want to be in another relationship where they just aren't loving me. For me, they want something I don't want to Be in another relationship where I feel I have to shrink to be loved because I can't be too much. I don't want to be in this financial position. I don't want to be in this job that I hate. I don't. I don't, I don't. And the unconscious mind can't hear. Doesn't hear the qualifying don't. All it knows is this is what you're focused on, this is what you're declaring, and that's what you'll call in. Because here's the thing. The unconscious mind will never make you a liar. So every single time you think or say, every man that I meet is fill in the blank, you know, it never works out for me. It's not going to happen for me. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Your unconscious mind is like, okay, got it clear. It's like putting an address in your nav system. And I have no sense of direction, so I literally have to use a nav system or my Apple maps all the time, wherever I am. But it's like we put in the address and it sells us how to get there. Every single one of those thoughts of like, this isn't going to happen for me. I'm this, I'm that, everybody's that. It's giving directions to our nav system, and it will always follow those directions. So really understanding how to flip that from thinking about all the things you don't want to flipping to thinking about the things you do will change your life so fast it will amaze it to you. It almost sounds like manifesting. Manifesting what you want it. Well, manifesting, yes. Because when you think about something, if you hold a thought for more than 17 seconds with all the emotion, you start to create new neural pathways or reinforce the old ones. So when we're wanting to manifest something, we are thinking about that thing and we are imagining it as though it is right. Which is great because that's what ignites the reticular activating system in the brain to actually look for the things that we need to be aware of and to see, to make sure that the thing that we want actually happens. Because otherwise we're not gonna. We don't see it. Right. We're all focused on all the things that never happen. And so. But the difference between what most people think about with manifesting, like, most people have this idea of, like, if I journal about it and I say it 20 times and I do my affirmations and I put it on a board, that it's going to happen. But it, it is really, it's neuroscience. It is really the feeling and being able to tap into actually feeling, seeing, hearing, as though it's happening because it's what gives your brain the direction of where we're going. And so yes, it is manifesting, but not in the sense of like we're just going to put this on a vision board and, and think about it 15 times a day. Because it's really about creating your life in the way in which you want to be living it instead of spending the rest of your life just wishing for it. And so once a woman gets crystal clear. Yeah. How does she move to the next step? Yeah. So when we look at the kind of, the way this works, it's clearing, creating and claiming. Right. It's kind of three phases. So once we get crystal clear now we get to do a dysfunction detox and get rid of all the stuff that isn't serving you. And we do that with a. There's something that I use in my work and it's some timeline work, it's multi dimensional, it's been used for hundreds of years. But we're able to. We talked a little bit earlier about the. That memory is cellular, right. And so negative emotions have weight. And so when we think about negative emotions, anger, sadness, fear, guilt, shame, and then all those limiting beliefs and limiting stories that we've come up with, you know, I'm too much, I'm not enough, I'm not worthy, whatever it is. All the UN's and lessons, if you think about, every single one of those emotions has its own ribbon. Okay? It has its own piece of ribbon. And throughout our lifetime, anytime we have a significant emotional experience with anger, for instance, a marble goes on that ribbon. Sadness, anger, fear, guilt, shame, they all have their own ribbons. So when something happens today that makes us angry, it's not really so much the today. It's the 40, 50, 60 years of marbles behind it. It's the gestalt. Right. It's the, it's the charge. And when we do this dysfunction detox, we actually get to release all of that without going back into any conscious memory that caused the pain in the first place. And then you have room to receive what's meant for you. Right. A few months ago, I cleaned out my pantry and as a. Oh no, I can't say 49. I just turned 50 as a 50 year old woman with a little, you know, touch of perimenopause and a sprinkle of add, like, I love everything I love organization. I love when things like have their space. And then also shit piles up around me and I'm just like, I can't deal with it and I want to shut the door, right? And it's like, it's such a. It's such a contradiction. So my pantry was just like full of stuff. And I took everything out and I put it all in the kitchen. And my husband was laughing. He's like, you are in your happy place. And I'm like, I am. So I took it all out and I cleaned out the pantry and then I threw away so much junk, expired pasta and half open cracker and granola. Like, just threw it all away. And then I put it all back and it was organized and felt like Christmas. But there was room, there was space. Go get new stuff. So it's just like that for us. We have to get rid of expired ways of thinking, operating all of that stuff so that we. Then there's room for the love, the life, but whatever it is that you want to be able to come in. And so that's that whole dysfunction detox piece. And then we're at that moment where you get to be separated from all the noise and all the labels and the mama and the wife or the ex wife or whatever. You get to figure out who you are now. Who are you now, really? And then we move in to that create phase where we get to kind of activate that and play in that. And then we talked about how important it is to get rid of stuff. We got to put more stuff in. So this is where we do that, right? We actually reinstall new strategy and behavior. Neurology. When I say strategy, because we're, you know, high talking, high achieving women, we're thinking strategy, like strategic planning. We have a strategy for everything. It's how we know what to do next. We have a strategy for grocery shopping, for love, for sex, for illness, for vacationing, for shopping. Like it's how the brain goes. Oh, yeah, right. We're going to shopping. We got to do this, this, this. So we got to replace all of those strategies. Some of them are really great. Most of them are super dysfunctional, right? And then now we've gotten crystal clear, we've cleared out all of that stuff that no longer serves you. We've replaced the neurology and the behavior and the strategy. And now we're going to look at those things that you say you want. What is it? Is it the relationship? Is it a career? Is it a trip to Italy? Like, it doesn't matter. And we're going to actually reverse engineer that starting at the end, back to today, step by step by asking the question, what has to happen just before that? What has to happen just before that? And when we start at the end, let's just for ease, let's say it's a trip to Italy and it's, you know, by, you know, on December 31, 2026 or sooner, I am celebrating booking this trip to Italy. Okay, great. What has to happen in the second before you could call me and say, I booked my trip? Like, how do you know you're there? I got a confirmation that the flights are booked, the villa's booked, whatever. So it's that moment when we were talking about manifesting and feeling. You anchor into that moment. What does that feel like when you open that email? What do you see, what do you hear, what's around you? And that's what we anchor in and install in, in. In your timeline, in your brain. So now it feels like it experienced that. It has the directions, it knows where we're going. And then we get to move into the claim phase. And this is where you get to own and embody and integrate all of this new frequency. Right. So when we own this new version, this new identity, we don't need the external validation or permission. We trust ourselves, we confidently hold boundaries, we communicate our needs expertly and really deepen the richness in every single one of our relationships. Because we're coming from a whole different standpoint. We communicate differently, we process differently, and we integrate that into our relationships and our decisions and our energy, career and all the things. And then we really just get to embody her. And we live and love and lead from this new frequency, from this new identity, this next level version of you where you get to just magnetize with grace and all of the old pressure, friction and noise falls away. And so what you're saying is that you're no longer operating from, or you're no longer dating or having relationships from your survival mode, you're actually having it from an authentic self mode. Absolutely. And with clarity and confidence and certainty that you've never had. But again, if we don't get rid of all that underlying stuff. But I'm, I know I'm gonna, you know, it's like beating a dead horse. But I'm gonna say it over and over again because people hear that and they go, yeah, but then I have to do all this work and I have to tell the story again and I have to unpack the thing that happened when I was a child. That's so freaking exhausting. Forget it. I'll just stay alone for the rest of my life. But that's not it at all. In fact, I won't even let you go into the story. That makes me feel better. It's not relevant. It's not relevant. But yes, you get to operate from a completely different identity of the identity of who you are now, not who you were, who you were 20 years ago, or when you got married or when you had your babies, or when you started off in your career when you were young and somebody inadvertently told you you had to be perfect in order to be loved, right? So all of that stuff, it gets, it gets released, it gets let go and you get to show up as, you know, the grown up, incredible, clear, confident, amazing woman that you are. What I like what you're saying is that you're no longer feeding that negative place or that place that kept you down as far as, not professionally, but as far as in love. You're saying, okay, yeah, it happened. I acknowledged that it happened. But here's my new story. And when we are able to tap in and to the subconscious, unconscious piece, you do actually get to rewrite your story neurologically. So it's not just like this theoretical. That sounds nice, right? It's, it's not one of those things that you're gonna do for a couple of days and then it's gonna go away. Like, you know, this is like you're no longer operating from the same system, which means you're no longer available for all of that nonsense. It's not even an issue anymore. So it's not even like, oh, I'm going to learn how to leave faster. I'm going to learn. You won't have to learn how to leave faster because you're not going to get into the relationship with that person in the first place. It's just, it changes everything. Do you find that women that go through your program, not only do they find love in a relationship, whether it's, you know, a boyfriend or a her husband, but they also start to build stronger relationships with others, like their children and their friends, their co workers and so forth, everything. And that is, that's the magic, right? Because it, it doesn't matter if you're coming to me because you desperately want to find the, you know, you want to have what you and I have, right? Married to your best friend, somebody who cherishes you and loves you and thinks about you and supports all your crazy, wild ideas and all of those things, or you're coming to me because you're in this transition and you're like, I don't know, I have no idea who I am. It doesn't matter. Because this isn't about business or love. This is rewiring you. And so every area of your life is touched. And not only your life, but the lives of your family, your children, your friendships, everything changes. And it's, it is just such a beautiful byproduct because it not only again changes you and your, your immediate family, but that's how we change the world, right? Because the communities that you're in, the rooms that you're in, the circles that you're in, you touch other people and they're like, wow, what happened to you? Like, I had a client in New York and she, she, and she, you know, I love her, she would 100% give me the green light to tell you this, but she is the very stereotypical New York Italian woman, big personality, very New York, right? And she was in the middle of this divorce and she had two kids, one that was about to graduate high school and then a daughter that was a little younger and she hated her ex husband so vehemently. And they had been in this process for like two years. And in that process she had a full on year long relationship with somebody else that had just ended. And for her it was impossible to even imagine being a room with her ultimately soon to be ex husband. But their son was graduating in like seven weeks from when she, when she and I met. And I said, you know, I. Obviously at the beginning, you know, I'm not gonna say to her at the beginning like, oh you, you just wait and see. Because she wouldn't believe me and she'd think I was crazy. But over the course of like four weeks and we looked at relationship stuff and she said to me, so while we're doing this work, like, can I date? And I said, well you are a grown ass woman, you can do whatever you want, but let's do it differently. Because she would just let herself be like swooped up by these men and they wanted all of her attention and they wanted to search every day. And then it would just burn out because there was nothing, there's no foundation there. And she was so good at going, well that's a red flag, but it'll probably get better and I'll just like ignore it a little bit for now. So we kind of reworked how she was going to do things and I'm like, great, but they get to see you once a week. And now that you have your menu, like, there is no such thing as you wondering, you know, because a non negotiable is a non negotiable. It's not a. Well, maybe it's okay this time. Like, it is literally non negotiable. So that changed everything for her. But about four or five weeks in, she had a standing happy hour with her girlfriends that she had been friends with, like, since college on Fridays. And she showed up one day and they said, we need to talk to you. She's like, yeah, what's up? They're like, are you on drugs? She's like, what? They're like, you are so much nicer and calmer. And you usually come and like, bitch and complain about, you know, your ex husband shouldn't. Like, now you talk about, like, things. You're. You want to plan a trip with the kids and you're gonna maybe remodel a house and you're thinking about going back to school and they're like, like, what's going on? And so for her to have that reflected back to her was wild. And then on graduation day, she had, you know, like, the week before, I'm like, you need, you know, like, go make this happen. So she invited her soon to be ex husband to, like, so they could all sit together at graduation and invited him to the party that she had planned for their book. She's like, no, he can figure it. He can. He's not coming. So her son got to experience this amazing day with both of his parents. Not, you know, screaming and yelling and making a scene. It just got to be about him. And she's like, this. Seven weeks ago, I would have told you you were effing crazy, but there was zero chance. And so it changed, like, again for her, for her kids, it changed everything. Now they didn't have to feel like, I can't talk about dad and my mom or vice versa, and they can't be in the same room. So now I have to figure out how I'm going to do this with one. You know, it's just the gift that that alone gives your kids, whether they're grown or not, is life changing because then their future children, like, it just changes the trajectory of everybody's life and future and what's possible for them inside of relationships. And it gave them the opportunity to be able to have both of their parents in a. In a friendly, memorable way. Yeah. Where it wasn't. They weren't sick, you know, have a pit in their Stomach and having so much anxiety about. Because knowing that there was going to be some horrible outcome or some fight or some scene, they just got to, like, relax and enjoy the day, which was such an incredible miracle. That's great. I know that some women may have this trauma where they don't trust. They don't trust. They have a trust issue. You know, they are successful. They trust, you know, their secretary, anybody, their support, subordinates. They trust those people. But when it comes to love, it's a little different. Trust is hard. I get it. Right? I. I mean, as a really tiny little girl, there was some sexual abuse by my mom's second husband's father. Then there was, you know, high school, my first and only boyfriend, and, like, cheated. Broke my heart, right? Cheated on me all the time. Broke my heart. Got married really young, 23. My husband, you know, we were too young. But it was a very lonely marriage. So all of my evidence was that everybody leaves me. Everybody does horrible things. They're always unfaithful, like, all of those things. And then the catalyst of me moving to California 12 years ago from Minnesota was my father had come back into my life. He was never present growing up and said, listen, so Maddie was 6 when I got divorced. So this is three years later, she was 9. And he's like, I think you guys should move to California. And I was like, oh, it had been like 40 degrees below zero multiple days in a row. And you came in April, and I had horses and chickens, and I had to run a hose in the window to get water for them because the pump broke. Like, I was kind of over it, right? I'm an island girl. I'm not made for winter. And I said to him, I'm like, you know, I'm not moving on one of your big whims. Because he's very charming and he can create and be beautiful visions, but most of it is, you know, not true. And so I said, I'm only going to disrupt Maddie's life once because I moved around a lot as a little girl, and it was hard. And my mom, and they'd been divorced for, you know, 30 some years, had had a surgery. She did nails for a living, and they nicked a nerve in her neck and she couldn't move her arm. So she was recovering. I'm not leaving the horses. And he said, listen, you can come take over the family business. Here's the financials. Take it. Make it yours. Bring your mom, bring the horses. It's going to be wonderful. So I ignored everything in My body that was screaming at me, don't do this. Don't do this. Can't trust him. This is insane. And I moved my mom, my daughter, two cats and two horses across the country. Didn't know a single person here. First few months, it kind of felt like the fairy tale, this. The horses were here, my parents were, like, hanging out at friend. We were all at family dinners. It felt really magical. And then a few months in, I'll never Forget, it was December 1st, because Maddie's birthday was the day before, and my father had left to go take, like, girlfriend number 800 to, like, back to South Dakota. And this man came to the studio to pick up these mailers for holiday. And he. The reason he came is that he worked, did some marketing stuff way before I came. And he was picking them up because there was some issue with the postmark. And so he was picking them up. And then I heard this noise. And I kind of peered around the corner into the front, into the shop, and I see the door open, and there's probably eight men with guns pointed at me. And they put me in handcuffs and sat me on a chair. And basically, without spending the next hour, I found myself in the middle of a huge DEA investigation. So the betrayal in that moment from my father, because this was all his stuff. So who does that? He not only put me in danger, but my baby and my mom. And so now I was at this moment where now I had no money because the assets were all seized, frozen, whatever. I was in this emotional turmoil, and I had to make a decision. I could take us back to Minnesota, no problem, or I could keep my promise to Maddie, which was, I'm only going to do this to you once. And at the end of the day, for me, that was mine no matter what. And so we stayed. And several hundred thousand dollars in debt later, we were here. But then I found myself in a very abusive relationship. Because, again, like, that sense of, maybe it's me, maybe this is as good as it gets, maybe I'm too picky. But that sense of not being able to trust, it's actually the most beautiful thing. It's around alchemical forgiveness, and it doesn't let anybody off the hook. Doesn't make it okay. But when I went through this myself, like, I fully forgave my father. Now he doesn't get a seat at the table. I haven't spoken to him in 11, 10 years, but I forgave him because I don't have to care. It's not mine to carry. All of that story and all of that pain and being consumed by either, like, so deep sadness of that betrayal and that what is wrong with me that you would then, you know, do this? And then, like, rage. And when you're consumed by those types of emotions, you can never move forward. I couldn't be the best mama that I could be. I could like all the things, right? And when we forgive at that level has again, nothing to do with that. The thing that you did to me and or you in general, you no longer get to control my thoughts, my feelings, my behavior. And it's then we stop drinking poison, hoping that they'll die, right? Because that's what it is. And we are just, like, going over it and reliving it and reliving it. And it's at that point, that difference where we talked about being in your story versus on it. Because when you're in it and it's the drama and it's, he did this. This happened. And, oh, my gosh, it defines you. That is your. A big part of your identity, right? But when you can literally go from that to standing on your story, then it just refines you. Like, I can tell you all of this without tears and, you know, whatever, because I'm standing on my story. It's part of who I am. I'm grateful for it. If all of that horrible stuff wouldn't have happened, I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't be married to the love of my life. I wouldn't be doing the work in the world that I'm called to do. So we really have to be grateful for all of it. We can't just be grateful for the good stuff, but the trust piece, that shifts so immensely when again, you can get rid of all that stuff, it's not yours to carry, and really release it from a different way than just regular conscious, like, okay, I'm gonna let this trick go because that doesn't work, right? We can say that all day long. That doesn't actually mean anything. So I get it. I get the trust piece. It is huge. And I promise you, it doesn't have to stay that way. And I think what I loved about what you said is that forgiveness is not for your dad. Forgiveness is for you. So that you can release it, say, I'm done with it. Put it out there and be able to move to where you're supposed to be. And. And the other part is you use this experience or all these experiences to become your blueprint as to the life that you wanted to design. For yourself? Absolutely. Based on the conversation that we have had here today, what are three pieces of advice that you would give that listener or viewer who is watching right now who says, I want some of this. How do I get it? Yeah. Number one is believe that you can. And it's hard. It's hard when you have a lot of evidence that it doesn't work for you or that it's, it can't. But I need you to really just tap into the possibility that you can have this. I want you to understand that I don't care if you're listening to this and you're 35 or you're 85, it makes no difference. This can change in an instant. And I think I said it earlier, but just because something's always been a certain way has actually no bearing on what's possible. And the last thing I would say is I want you to consider values in a different way. So my values as a person and for my business, love, generosity, impact, the belief in what's possible and being a man for miracle. And that's my favorite thing to teach. And so for you, if you could normalize miracles and truly, truly look at what it is that you're focusing on. And I have a, we don't have time today, but I have a wonderful 72 hour exercise that you could do to literally retrain your brain of what you're thinking about becoming that magnet for miracles. But just know that it's possible and it's, you're not too late, you're not too old, you're not too young, you're not too whatever it is fully possible for you and it doesn't have to be hard and it doesn't have to take months and years to do this work. Riana for the listener viewer who says, man, I love everything she said, if she can really help me turn my life around in three days or for three months, how can they begin to work with you? Absolutely. So all of my work is private. It's, there's, this is not a course or a program or group work. Right. Obviously, the framework stays the same, but every single person is different. So it's bespoke, it's designed toward, around you. But you can find me on my website, rianamalia.com all the socials, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube @rianamalia, send me a message, send me a DM, reach out. But before we close, I'd love to give all of your listeners and your viewers a gift, if that's okay. Yes. So I've developed something that we lovingly call the le which is the extraordinary Love index. And this is a diagnostic, it's an assessment. And this is not the what Disney character are you Situation. Like, this is 40 questions. So give yourself a good 10 or 15 minutes. When you're going to take it, just answer it thoughtfully because it looks at nine key areas of who you are. And then based on all of those answers, I send you a 28 page fully personalized report that shows you all of those areas. And based on what your scores and your answers, like this is what you might notice keeps showing up in your life. This is the cost of you staying here. Here's something you can do right now to help move yourself toward the life and love that's meant for you. Totally my gift. So go take the ELI. You're going to get insight about you that you've never had. It's going to connect some dots for you. And that's where it all begins. It's just like going, wow, that makes so much sense. And I actually review every single ELI that comes in. There's thousands of women that have taken it and I look at every single one because it's so fascinating about how our mind works, how we perceive things, what our attachment scores are, what our recognition and our imprint. All of these things that determine and answer the question of what is standing between you and extraordinary love. So go take the ELI. You can find the ELI everywhere links in bios website. You can also just go to quiz.rhiannimalia.com and it'll take you straight to the ELI. But go take the at least aren't they. That is. Let's have a conversation. That is a generous gift. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for sharing all of your information. I will make sure to include all of your links in the show notes so that people can take the test, learn a little bit more about you and start to build stronger relationships by working with you. And get rid of the clutter. Yeah, let's get rid of the clutter. I love that. Yeah. Thank you so much for coming on. Thanks for having me. Oh my goodness. I love this conversation with Riana. If your love life has ever felt like a cluttered pantry, here's what I want you to take with you. You don't need to try harder. You need to clear what's expired, old wiring, the old, old stories, the old patterns so that there's finally room for the love you actually want. Today you heard why high achieving women get stuck in love hello identity and subconscious programming how you can stop feeding your brain the constant I don't want this again loop and how to get really specific like Riana's menu idea helps you you make clean yes or no decisions without second guessing yourself. And don't forget Riana's generous gift, the Extraordinary Love Index the ELI, a deep assessment that leads to a personalized report, helps you connect the dots and see what's standing between you and extraordinary love. If you want to learn more about Riana, Malia or connect with her, head on over to createthebestme.com/ep166 I'll have all her links and that gift waiting for you there or click below in the Show Notes if this episode helped you, please subscribe, share with a friend, and if you're listening on a podcast app, a quick review helps more women find the show and come back next week for another amazing episode created just for you. Until then, keep dreaming big, take care of yourself and remember, you're beautiful, strong and capable of creating the best version of yourself. Thank you for watching. Catch you next week. Bye for now.