Relationship Room Instagram Live Discussion - Gender is a Feminist Issue

Hello, Diva Humans. How are you? It's Thursday, it's 6 o'clock in the evening in the UK, which means it can only be time for one thing, that is The Relationship Room. Hi, welcome. My name is Ali Hendry, my pronouns are she/her. I am a columnist for Diva Magazine, and I'm also here every week running The Relationship Room for your delectation.

Hi, welcome.

So today we are talking about gender Is a feminist issue. That is the topic of today. Welcome one, welcome all. Good to see you all. Uh, I will invite my guest up to the main stage and we will get going with today's topic. Hello everybody, thank you so much for joining us in the weekly relationship room. Lovely to be here in space with you. Uh, so I shall seek out me my guest, and we—

welcome, welcome!

How's your day?

How's, how's your Tuesday? Thursday? How's your— how was your Tuesday, and how indeed is your Thursday? Um, because that is the day that we are—

hello!

Hi, how are you?

How are you?

Very well, thank you. I'm just moving my head up a bit. Oh, you're moving your head as well! We're getting ahead of ourselves.

Very good.

Thank you very much. Now, would you like to introduce yourself, share your pronouns, and let us know what you do?

Sure. Hi everyone, my name is Cynthia Fortlage, she/her pronouns. I am a global award-winning inclusive leadership expert and gender diversity specialist. Within that, gender does impact the way you lead. And I have been working with corporations around the world, now in excess of 500 corporations in over 30 different countries that I've been able to experience. I am UK-based, even though this accent doesn't say so.

You've done it all. And also, you, you and I are amazing on the dance floor.

Oh, we are fabulous.

We're absolutely fabulous. We both go to this amazing event called the House of Happiness, which is a monthly sober day rave.

Yeah.

And it's so much fun.

Nothing like going to a rave, being home by 6, in your jams, in bed by 9, and you've danced the whole afternoon away. It's fabulous.

It's amazing.

You've had a workout, you've met some gorgeous, gorgeous people, you've connected with gorgeous people, you've listened to music, you've got the dopamine. It's all, it's all there. Yeah, love it. Oh, I know, we need to, we need to get them in as well into the relationship room, get them talking about how good it is for relationships. So what, for you and your career, what came first for you?

What came first? Hmm. Well, the career now is a follow-on from my previous career. So I was, when I came out, I was a C-suite executive, and I was in the world of IT and technology. And obviously gender in tech is a huge issue with women in STEM. And I was very much involved at a periphery because through a lot of that I wasn't me. I was the old me. Um, it's all me, but it was my previous me. So in that scenario, it was— I was beginning to learn to fight. And you would think someone that had a wife and a daughter, I would have been amazing at it. Um, when I look back reflectively with hindsight, I go, I was absolutely horrid. I was not doing what was needed. I was not being an ally and listening to what was required. And I was just going along with what I thought was needed. And certainly, I wasn't taking leadership in those spaces. It would be inappropriate. But I was certainly participating, and I definitely had a voice that was being used. I just didn't use it as well as I should have. And from that, I have learned. That I've applied into the work I do today.

Mm, I love what you say about that, that listening, because we, we frame words, we put them into our own lives, and actually we forget that if we can pause for a moment and climb into someone else's life, then we're going to be able to go on that learning journey much more powerfully.

Oh, absolutely.

And of course, you've, you've, you've done that, and also now you have, you've seen both sides, as it were.

Yeah, I love to call myself, I'm one leader with two genders worth of experience.

Yes, yeah, absolutely. And that's, and that's what's brought us here actually today, talking, which is thinking and talking, it's a new word. So if you want to think and talk, it's called talking, people, that's what it is. So we're talking about How gender fits into leadership and therefore, you know, work relationships. We're also, you know, we're in the relationship. When we talk about work relationships, we talk about romantic relationships as well. When we're talking about the workplace and we're talking about gender and leadership, because I know this is an area that is really floating your boat right now.

Yes, yeah.

What comes up for you around that?

I think the biggest thing is the realization of You know, why does this topic merge with my previous work? So just quick recap for the audience. So along my journey, I have been a corporate leader in the C-suite. I have been a national feminist leader leading the women's movement in Canada, hence this accent, and internationally I've been involved in the LGBTQ+ movement in supporting that with previous roles in something like OutRight International, which is a global LGBTQ+ organization. They are also the United Nations Secretariat for LGBTIQ issues. And so for me, this very much kind of brought it. So when we talk about this topic today, it is the culmination of all of these aspects, my over 30 years of leadership across corporate spaces, feminist spaces, and LGBTQ+ spaces. And what a beautiful time to do it since it's LGBTQ+ History Month as well.

Yeah, it is, it is. And I know— and by the way, I've just noticed that this is the wrong way round, and I don't know why, because—

Oh, your video is mirrored? You have to unmirror it and then it'll show up.

Ah, it's always been the right— so when I print it out, I print it out backwards. So that it's the right way round.

And the camera today needs it the other way.

Now the camera today has done it the other way. So how do I do that then? Oh, I'll have to have a look at that. Sorry about that. So I will put in the show notes this the right way round so that you can see the right address. So this word feminism, it's obviously, it's had a, it's gone through a lot as a word and how people view it and how they viewed it in the past and how they view it now, and actually how they might view it in the future.

How—

what does feminism mean to you?

Feminism is a word, believe it or not, it was the first thing I learned on my gender journey. So in 2016, I was sitting in the therapist's office going, I don't feel like me, I feel like Cynthia. And my therapist asked me, "So are you a feminist?" And that began a very intense conversation that continued through, and obviously I still work at today. Very simply, it means equality for all. And the idea is when there's, you know, issues like systemic injustices, or we have things that, you know, representation, pay gaps, violence and harassment, you know, those aspects affect many people, not just quote the older traditional sense under, you know, I'm thinking of the various waves of feminism. So under first wave, second wave, third wave, and, you know, I'm posting on my Blue Sky, it's a new channel that I'm, you know, trying to develop. And, you know, but on my Instagram, you know, I'm talking about that. And the whole idea is realize all these great leaders that have come before, but they didn't understand feminism as we know it today. And that's why feminism today includes me. And that's why I've had a chance, because it's about intersectionality and it's about inclusivity. And inclusion, of course, is a massive word. In leadership that we talk about because you can do everything you want, but typically organizations that are inclusive, they're inclusive typically from the top down. In other words, the culture of an organization is defined from the top down, but it's lived and experienced by those of us from the bottom up. I didn't know this when I was a C-suite executive. I have come to deep realizations of how I didn't get it right, but now that teaches me how I can help others get it right.

Got it.

And so it is understanding that aspect. And, you know, I think the intersectionality is probably one of the strongest points, you know, because when we think of those things, we're thinking of, um, you know, we're talking race, we're talking Religion, we're talking countries of origin, even body shape and so forth. All of these things come into it. Neurodiversity, disability, I could go on. But the realization that all of these aspects, and when I talk to companies and it's like, well, okay Cynthia, kind of boil this down. I go, look, you create employee resource groups or ERGs typically in order to have a particular group by a definition of people that come together to focus on a specific aspect of someone's identity. Yeah. But as an example, I go, well, so where does your Black woman who's a lesbian and neurodiverse and uses a wheelchair, which group does she belong to?

She's got to go to a lot of groups. She's gonna be busy.

And she doesn't have the time. And so where companies miss it is those groups are very important for supporting the employee, for providing a safe space within the issues, and being able to give focused feedback to the organization, especially if they're used strategically in order to help the organization create better policies to deal with the issues that might be specific to a group. But when we deal with the human being, when we are managing that human being, when HR is, we're a whole person. That example of that Black woman is all of those things. So don't come to her with one lens of how you're going to see her. I mean, gosh, if you do that from a feminist perspective, I mean, I'm sure everyone knows, right? But The pay gap, when we talked about the 82 pence to the pound comparative in the UK, and it's 83 cents to the American dollar from an American position, that model only applies to white women. That does not apply to Black women or brown women or Hispanic women or women with an Asian background. Like, at the end of the day, it is different. So there's not even equity when within a particular group. And so, this realization that the whole person, we need to factor all of these things in. And so, it's just, it's not about equality anymore. It is about equity. And inclusion just means we're going to include everybody. And so, today in the conversations, you know, I think within the diversity, the DEI space, I think we have made a few mistakes. Historically, and that has been we focused on that one group, and we never did anything for all the other people that were left behind, who were feeling left out, not included, so forth, including those white guys who are carrying a ton of privilege. And the whole idea is, well, what are we doing to help them through that model? And so now it's about, let's bring everybody through this journey. But we are going to need to make adjustments to create equity for everybody. But if we're creating equity for group, we need to deal with why you feel you— it's not equitable. So that you're coming along the journey too. And you can choose to stay behind, but we don't want you to stay behind. So instead of ignoring you and expecting you to come along because that's the right thing to do, right? I mean, how many times— the right thing to do doesn't change companies anymore, not in today's climate, and quite honestly it's been fading for a couple of years. Now we're talking about real business outcomes, so I put my executive hat on and I'm looking at everything I've been doing and I'm going, okay, when I look at these issues, what's the direct impact? Why should these companies actually invest in making these changes to deal with it? You know, it could be they want to grow market share. You know, most companies that work on creating equity and inclusion within their organization, you know, can see as much as a 70 to 80% gain in market share against their competitors. Or we talk about making better decisions. This one blew my mind. 83% of diverse groups make better decisions. 83%, you know, they want to talk bottom line, direct revenue impact. We're talking, you know, as much as 20% or more. 30% has been a historical number. Seems to really be about 20%, but you can't checkbox any of this. You can't just go, "Yeah, we had that training session. We did it once." Yeah. No, no, once is not enough. And you shouldn't put the onus on the employees who are having to suffer through this within the company, which is hopefully why they bring somebody with me to carry some of that heavy weight and to kind of get them through it. But as I always say, I can't live that experience of an employee within the company. I'm a consultant. I'm on the outside. I can help them create the environment, but they're going to live it. And so they need to be really committed to living it because, you know, that company is not going to fold, hopefully, tomorrow, right? The John Deeres, the Googles, everybody that said, you know, they're canceling their DEI programs. First of all, not completely true. All they've done is move team, they've embedded things so there's no longer a team. The team is part of the inside of the company. And they're just doing things really quietly under the covers because they don't want to draw attention. And we know what it takes to dry. We don't need to name and shame it, unless we want to perhaps drive a whole bunch of viral— But at the end of the day, you know, the reality— and I'm talking around it, but the reality is that we are working in a climate that is very politically charged, as well as economically challenging. For organization, and it's economically challenging because of the uncertainty. And so what we have here is a situation that, you know, almost where if the US catches a cold, everybody else gets a sniffle. And so sitting here in London and looking at it, I'm watching for signs of the sniffles developing in the UK. So, you know, kind of back to that point within the feminine, We've seen this evolution through the waves. We've seen the introduction of intersectionality and inclusion for all. And through this, that doesn't mean there isn't a pay gap. We need to address the pay gap, but we need everyone to come along. And for those that are maybe benefit from addressing the pay gap, we need to deal and help everybody else that feels they're not benefiting. From addressing the pay gap. We haven't historically done that. So I think that needs to happen. We need to look at the systems, and the systems are usually put upon an organization, a business, but you know, these are societal expectations. The idea of, well, what's a gender norm? What's a stereotype? And of course, we see that today, well, what is a woman? You know, as a typical trope that gets thrown up. You know, and I'd love to see somebody answer it in an articulate way because it's not a simple conversation. Even when I try and address it, it is wrapped in so many layers because we're getting out of this 1950s, really Feminism 2.0, because at Feminism 3.0 we're starting to change even though it primarily at least historically, is viewed as, you know, much more inclusive for the lesbian community within the movement, but it was moving the needle on, you know, lots of other aspects. It's really Feminism 4.0 that's fully embracing the idea of all of us as our perception of women. And I would say, you know, a woman is someone who doesn't enjoy the societal expectation of gender privilege. They are. And when we all experience that from a feminist point of view, we are all in the same boat. Right? And I'll give you a simple example. In 2023, the statistics were 1 in 4 women would experience violence or harassment. And today we talk talk about 1 in 3, right? And we know that there's this epidemic. I think we've just gotten better at collecting data. I don't know that it's happening more, but we're talking more about it because we know we can't stay silent. We have to talk. We're talking about it and we're dealing with it. Well, the numbers for, for instance, trans women and non-binary gen— was 1 in 3. So we are statistically identical. And guess what? It's the same system It's the same system of oppression. We can use the exact same words to talk about it. And while the perpetrators might be slightly different, they still have a lot of the same biological factors in common of who are those that are causing that violence and harassment. So I mean, that's just one lens on one aspect that deals with it. But representation, I'm— we still don't see enough women, let alone women of color, in leadership positions in organizations. Right? Or that we talk about women in politics, right? And again, where's the representation for women of color and from different ethnic backgrounds, from different gender diverse backgrounds, right? I mean, the US Congress has one trans woman that made it into, and the first thing they did was pass a bathroom bill. Going back to bio— because that's the biggest issue they got in the United States, was who's going to use the bathroom. So anyways, I'll let you ask a question. I've gone on, I think, long enough.

I could listen forever, and we've had so many hearts and recognitions coming in as well through the chat as people are agreeing with what you're saying. You know, I really took on board what you were saying in terms of the divisiveness that DEI has created in the past, and also missing out on that intersectionality piece, and, um, using DEI to exclude a group that actually has the biggest power and needs to be somehow included in a way that doesn't diminish the marginalized groups that are needing that support and that attention.

Yeah. Yeah. You listen well.

I'm quite good at summarizing. That's a talent. People, if anybody has a question or a comment, do pop it into the chat. We are here, so please do. If you've got anything that you want to ask or comment on, then please do pop it into that comment section and we will read it out. So, it's really interesting because we're talking about the organizations and, you know, the groups and how they're set up, and then also the impact of management and leadership and the really important leadership work you're doing. So, when it comes to individuals, and I love what you said at the beginning in terms of your experience of realizing you weren't able to hear things that needed to be done, and now you are able to have to be that advocate that can say, actually, this is what you're not hearing. This is what I can now frame it in a way that helps you understand. This is the work that we need to be doing when we're looking at gender in leadership. So when it comes down to individuals and the work that individuals can do, all genders, as we're saying, can do around promoting where feminism is and where it's going? What have you found has been helpful?

Well, I think it's intriguing that, I mean, one of the first things you have to address in the conversation is, well, you know, men going, "Well, I can't be a feminist," because they think it's for women, right? And so the idea of, you know, again, the fourth wave says, "No, we're about inclusion," and we always kind of have been because men have been welcome to be supporters, right? And bringing their privilege into the conversation, I think probably clearly since at least, you know, wave 3 of feminism, they have. But there are also women that are going, well, I mean, look at the viral ones when I forget, it's a tradwife, right? Right?

Yeah.

A traditional wife. Yeah. And they're going, you know, I can dress pretty and do the home, Yeah, that's kind of exactly what we fought for. I remember working with a young woman, and I forget which part of my life, and she went, "Well, I'm not a feminist." I went, "Oh, why are you not a feminist?" And she goes, "Well, my dream is I want to find Mr. Right, stay home, and raise children." I went, "That's amazing, and I hope you get to do that." And she's now doing it, which is awesome. I went, "But you see, The feminism of waves before would tell you, well, no, that's not what we're fighting for the whole bit, especially Wave 2, Wave 3, because it was about getting women into the workforce. So I can absolutely see that messaging come out, but that's not the message of Feminism 4.0. It's about choice. All women want in all aspects of life is choice. And you know, if we aren't given choice, then we will strategically put choice in and we'll play that game. And unfortunately, you know, the lonely men's club who complains a lot about it, they're still really sad because they haven't figured out how to break into that because they're still thinking, if you will, second wave feminism and how to break into that. And we're going, No, we're actually about choice. So if you want to choose that as the life that you want, then we want that for you, and we want to fight for it. We also think you should— might be deserving of a living wage doing that. There's no reason that you should suffer.

Yeah.

Um, and whether that comes in the form of tax breaks, I mean, that's more policy as to how it gets— but the idea of it's recognized as having a value, because we know that if it's not that it actually has a downturn in economic impact. When men can't— but whenever there's this equity, then all of a sudden we actually see that systems start to benefit everyone. So we need to deal with those questions. But you know, then I think we move into, well, you know, what about the tropes of, well, women can't be leaders, you know, Definitely, if you're probably under, well, even 35 these days or younger, it's like, oh, well, you have your monthly cycle and, well, God forbid you couldn't make a decision when you're on your cycle, right? I'm sorry. I mean, a woman's pretty damn strong. She'll go into battle even when she's bleeding. So let's break that down pretty quick. To deal with, which is why one of the series I'm running is all these amazing feminist leaders. And I'm going through the waves with, you know, we're in wave 2 feminists that I'm highlighting right now. We'll move into wave 3 and eventually wave 4. But at the same time, I also am running a parallel set of business leaders. And I was very particular because I actually made sure that A, I looked at the demographics And as I was putting together the program, I actually had to hunt to find the right women to highlight. A, representative-wise, that we needed to hit that 50% because women do represent the 50%. But I also wanted to make sure that we had women who were Black and who were from South Asian backgrounds and so forth because they're leaders too. And have them all represented within these programs. And I think we need more examples But one of the criteria when I was searching for this was I would run an analysis on the financials of the companies they ran. Obviously, I'm looking for good news stories, but I was looking for where did they actually outperform kind of everyone else? Why were they a good inclusive leader for their time? And it wasn't just, you know, they had great HR policies or whatever. It has to be they were great business leaders. Business typically being measured by financials and market shares and so forth. And so that were factors that I brought in to show, no, they did it. And in many cases, these inclusive leaders of all backgrounds and, you know, all races, et cetera, they all had unbelievable performance during their era to deal with it. I think between the feminist leaders and the actual corporate leaders, that's a message that we don't see enough. Which again, it really prohibits a lot of people from thinking, how do we end up allowing a woman to go into leadership? Because of course, it's not the glass ceiling, you know, for those women that make it into a CEO role, it's the glass cliff, right? For the audience that aren't familiar, so the glass ceiling is I'm trying to move into that role and there's this artificial ceiling preventing me. But the glass cliff is, oh, hang on, the company's going to have this huge liability or risk and they're really going to tank, so we should put a woman in charge so it tanks under her oversight, not the guy that was in there that actually caused the problems. So, you know, let's— so I don't know, maybe that speaks well for future US elections, if there is such a thing, in terms of maybe they'll put a woman into picture. But at the end of the day, it's that idea of putting a woman in and watching, waiting for her to fail. We've seen it in politics lots. I mean, Canada, the first female prime minister was put in for a very short time. There was a huge row that came up and she was out, right? I think we've seen the same happen in Europe. And even amazingly strong leaders that I think we all miss to some degree, such as Jacinda Ardern from New Zealand, right?

Yeah.

She carried through the pandemic, through everything. And that's just like, you know what? This is just more than I want to put up with for a job. And she walked away. And during that same era, there was many amazing women, which unfortunately what we find is because the systemic issues haven't been addressed. These women experience a form of burnout as they kind of hit that plateau and they end up leaving. So we know that, and again, this is a 2023 stat, we know that for every woman that now makes to a director and above level, so director, senior management, executive board, 2 women in that space leave. And so we're still on a decline. And certainly no surprise to the audience, one of the biggest industries when I've analyzed the numbers that that's come in is within the STEM and specifically the tech industry, where in 2023, uh, 23, 24, 23, the numbers dropped to 19% as a representation of women women in leadership within the entire STEM industry space, with tech being a big player of that. And that actually dropped 1% from the year previous, where today we actually have 27% across all industries globally are women in leadership positions. In the top 50 banks in Europe and the UK, women represent 29%. So believe it or not, banking's actually outperforming the standard, but this is 50% of the population is only 29% of the leadership in banking. Yeah, that's still a problem.

Yeah, that's so interesting when you look at the stats. And also, um, I love that you talk about the, the systems, and you know, when we talked about women are— where we're at now in terms of feminism is to do with women having choice. I mean, having real choice rather than pretend choice, or choice that's wrapped up in some kind of systemic, um, you know, stranglehold. And that actually, that's where we're going right now, and, and that has the capacity to benefit all genders if we are promoting happy, healthy humans in life. I mean, hello.

Yep, absolutely.

Okay, so, um, looking at my notes, I think we, we have, um, yeah, yeah, you, you've covered so much of what we wanted to talk about, and you've done it so clearly and with factastic— your brain is amazing.

It's a good menopause bit.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. So much so I've been making up words today. That's my menopause manifesting itself.

Fucking's a great word, right?

Yeah, absolutely. We're gonna, we're gonna hashtag that. So what are you— so tell me some more what you're currently working on. So you've got these two programs running, so tell us more about those and how people can access access your work?

Absolutely. Well, I mean, it just so happened, it was not intentional, but I actually just launched the refresh of my website today. I'm working with a partner, we're launching a whole new program on inclusive leadership. So, as you, as the viewers may see, I think very big picture, holistic about the whole thing, and the partner I'm working with, they their market's very effective in selling modules. So what I mean doing is taking all of this stuff I'm talking to you about that I could, you know, lead an organization on a journey through, and that's the way I approach it from a very big picture perspective. And they kind of go, would you like to buy Module X? And so I've been designing Module XYZ, so 5 modules that represent a development of Leaders, and it's very intentional because we know the word diversity carries a certain toxicity in conversations today. But in the corporate space, so does the idea of cultural development. Organize— it's like, whoa, that's it. And yes, I'm coming from that space. I'm talking— but so here's where I've approached it. I said, okay, let's develop intentionally inclusive leaders, and a leader could be an employee becoming a supervisor, all the way up through executive and board member, so the entire journey. If you're moving up in that kind of career progression, which I learned a lot from my, you know, mentorships that I run, another service. But the whole idea was, let's create a whole bunch of inclusive leaders, and if you get enough within an organization, then they're looking for a culture that supports them. And so, if their culture is not designed for inclusivity, then they need to work on it. And yes, I could help them get there too with additional offerings. But the idea is they then know who they are as an inclusive leader, and they want to create a supportive system that brings everyone along and creates the right environment. So this way, we're not talking about culture development. We're not talking about diversity, we're talking about inclusive leaders specifically for the purpose of creating organizations we all want to belong to.

Mm-hmm, I love that. And your website is CynthiaFortlage.com?

Yes, that hasn't changed.

Same website, and also C-A Fortlage here, which is written backwards. Apologies for that, I don't know, I don't know why Instagram has now decided— I must have pressed a button— has decided to do it because I printed it out in the way that I always print it out.

Right, and the company detail where all these campaigns that I talked about, the leaders and the pro— that's all under the Fortlage Collective. So @fortlagecollective is where you will find those today. So I've moved away from being a services company to being a collective representing the very broad spectrum of all the things that I've now got to have been doing and, you know, we're looking to further to do, including the global foundation that I have no idea how to create one, but I know I need to create one in order to bring acceptance for that understanding that we've talked about before, to bring that to the global audience. Because remember, I have a spiritual commitment to teach 1 billion people.

Yes, yes, I remember this.

By the year 2050. And I know I can't do that on my own. I'd love to say I could, but I wear a cape sometimes. It's to keep me warm rather than fly. But yes, so I believe that I need to create a global foundation in order to bring that to life across nations all over the world to deal with. So that's that idea. And then of course, building on my writing that I've been doing, which I've completed two manuscripts. Looking for a literary agent or a publisher.

Okay, you heard it here first, people. Get involved. If you have connections, reach out to Cynthia Fortlage.

And I'm in the midst of writing 3 more books concurrently, and I have 2 more I haven't even started yet. So I keep getting these ideas, um, which is crazy to me because if you asked me 10 years ago, would I have ever written a book, let alone potentially 7, I went, no, why would I write a book? Yeah, yeah. So now you're getting—

you're getting— spirit is downloading all the time on you. Totally.

You have to be open to it. And yeah, yeah, yeah, we've talked both offline and in person, you know, a lot. I'm very open. The, the old me was not open. Yeah, I have learnt to open myself up and to just simply be quiet and accept what comes in. And then I Allow me to process it after the fact. And yeah, they love to do a lot of work.

Totally, totally, totally. Right, so we are currently manifesting an agent for you and then a publisher, right? Let's do that. You've heard it here first, people. Send out the vibrations. So now we have got the quickfire section of the Relationship Room that we do every week. The first part of the quickfire section is Can you give me a question that you would like me to ask next week's guest? So any kind of question at all, it can be related to what we've talked about here today, or it can be any sort of topic that you think would be interesting for next week's guest to answer in the Relationship Room.

I think the question would be, how do they handle the toxicity of around the question of our individual diversity in the conversations these days, in handling it, what do they do to recharge and protect themselves when they do that?

Mm, yeah. That's a really good question. Yeah, I love that. Okay, fantastic. I will ask it next week on your behalf. Okay. And of course, that means that you've got a question from last week's guest. Yay! So last week's guest was Aria Diana, so that's A-R-I-A underscore underscore Diana, who is a somatic relationship coach. And the question for, for you is, what is your best tip for working with jealousy?

Oh, well, I'll first admit I have not been in a partnership since leaving. I've dated a lot, but I have not been in a partnership since I left my marriage. Um, open to one, putting it out there.

You heard it here first.

Um, but you know, I think that the foundation— what I realized, I mean, I was married for 32 years, and you know, communication is really the foundation that we lose or we feel we can't. Like, my spouse knew nothing about where my brain was going trying to process who I was until, quote, I was coming out. And then, like, it was shock and awe. So, you know, communication is absolutely— and for that, I have learned in order to, you know, be a better communicator when innocent. Like, so again, we've talked about when you're with somebody and, and if you're romantic, it's about constantly communicating, right? I mean, First of all, it's about consent that can be withdrawn today. But, you know, no is a whole answer. It doesn't require an explanation. And I've learned those things. I didn't know those things. So in learning this, I think that's where it is. And, you know, certainly as someone that's been through that journey, I always question whether or not I have learned enough not to repeat that.

Right.

Check with me later.

Yeah, exactly.

Communication is the answer.

That's the— yeah, that's the foundation. And within your answer, I was also hearing if you're not communicating enough, then things are going to escalate and they're going to end up bigger than you two and the relationship. So if you're keeping that constant communication, things like jealousy are going to get nipped in the bud in a much more, um, easeful way.

Yeah.

Yeah, I get that. And then the last question that I ask everybody is, what is love?

What is love? Well, you're asking me. Love is love and acceptance. Love is unconditional, but we're human beings, so nothing is unconditional. So the way to deal with unconditional to make it unconditional is to have acceptance first. And because you start again with acceptance without understanding, but you, through communication, you grow to acceptance with understanding. The idea of acceptance does not equal agreement, nor does it equal tolerance. I don't need to be tolerated. I just simply want to be accepted for who I am, not for who I was. Mm-hmm. So that's that open heart, that willingness of acceptance in the moment without passing a judgment. If you will, not judging a book by its cover, but let's look at the chapters and pages within where all the amazing parts of who we are exist.

I love that description, and I love the order around the acceptance piece. That's just, yeah, mind-blowing. That's amazing. Thank you, Cynthia, so much for coming into the Relationship Room. It's been so, so lovely to have you here and to pick your amazing brains. And if you have just joined us, we are wrapping up, I'm afraid, but we will be saving this on the Diva tab so you can check out the replay. We have talked about so much. The conversation was around gender is a feminist issue, so that is the topic that we have been talking about here too, together today. Um, so yeah, thank you so much, and please do check out— we'll put all your offerings in the show notes so that we can, uh, get in touch with you when, when your agent comes a-knocking. We can— they can find you. And who— whoever has joined us today, or if you're watching the replay, thank you so much for being here. For being in the Relationship Room. It's been great to have you here as well. It wouldn't be a Relationship Room without you. So wherever you are in the world, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, and good night. Take care.

Bye all. Bye.