Hello and welcome to Revolutionize Your Love Life.
Do you want to know more about love relationships?
What makes them work?
How to create the one of your best dreams?
Do you want to be in a really healthy, juicy love relationship?
In these podcasts we will give ideas and practical advice to light your way.
Whether you're looking for a love partner, already in a relationship, you wish could
be better or leaving one that has run its course.
There will be something to inspire, empower and support you.
Revolutionize Your Love Life is a fortnightly podcast where you will access the knowledge
and wisdom of love, experts and relationship coaches from across the world to help you
find true fulfillment in love.
I am your host Heather Garbutt.
Welcome.
Hello, I'm here today with Deonna, the honor Washington's a love guide.
She has got so much information to give us today on the mastery of the feminine as she
calls it or the focusing on the feminine.
She guides professional women to take control of their love lives and attract the really
beautiful relationships they deserve.
And she does that by changing the way they love themselves.
She's had a decade of certified experience and she teaches women to tackle the subconscious
blocks and develop radical self-love that attracts healthier relationships.
She's also a dear friend and colleague of mine.
Welcome Deonna.
Oh my goodness Heather, can I just take you with me everywhere?
It sounds a lovely the way you say it.
Thank you for having me.
Oh, it's very sweet of you to come.
So let's look first at what is needed in preparing for love.
You talk about focusing and mastering around the feminine, the feminine principle.
And I know that you've done all of this research and this is what has emerged for you as really
important in the preparation.
Yeah.
You know, this work is really near and dear to my heart because I was my first subject,
right?
So I took a look a deep dive into myself and at that certain point I was totally disconnected
from my natural feminine, I had become very hardened, very, you know, trying to force
things to happen, not in flow at all.
And I just looked to, you know, some other women that were just flowing in their feminine.
They were soft, they were beautiful, they were very natural, delicate and things just
seemed to come easy to them.
Love, career, everything.
So I, as I worked on myself and kind of mastered femininity, I started to just study others
and through, you know, the hundreds of people that I've assisted, they've been my test subjects
as well to see how femininity has impacted their love lives, what men are attracted to.
So now I'm just on a mission to share that information so that women can not only experience
love in the fullness, but do it with ease, low, like, you know, not all of this hard
work.
No.
And there's a piece I want to add in here because generally we're talking about men
and women, but there's a new pair of phrases that are coming to the fore where I was looking
at the masculine principle of the instrumental, the active and the feminine principle being
the expressive.
Yes.
And I think let's just hold that because we may have gay men listening to this, we may
have gay women, we may have people who don't identify as either gender.
But I think it's really important to really clarify those qualities on the spectrum.
I think that's a great distinction and a great way to be more inclusive as well.
So that's great to bring up.
Masculine and feminine traits exist and it's all no matter the gender.
So I think it's really important for us to not think that, you know, because you may
be good at a particular thing or maybe not so good at a particular thing that you're
not masculine or you're not feminine.
It's literally just about learning some of the characteristics that align and show up
more present in either masculine or feminine.
I think that's the best way to kind of classify it.
Yeah, beautifully put.
Thank you.
So you've got a list of these characteristics, the feminine characteristics we'll call them,
which are core strengths to become aware of and develop.
Yes.
What's your first one?
Thank you for highlighting that they're core strengths.
So I'm going to say be prepared because some of the things that we're going to talk about
on this list, when you first hear them, you may have been used to associating them negatively
as a weakness.
So we're going to highlight today how they're actually strengths.
And the first one, which I think we probably both will agree it's the most important one
is the capacity to love.
This literally is what you're able to give and receive.
And in the feminine, your capacity to love is greater than the masculine.
There's something innate about love that is present in the feminine.
So how does this show up?
I'm sure people are thinking.
Well it shows up in forgiveness.
It shows up in grace.
It shows up in your tenacity to want to love.
These are all things that are encompassed under like your capacity, what you can carry
in regards to love.
And I'm sure you have something to add.
Yeah, yeah, you're inspiring me.
To tell everybody we haven't discussed this first, we want to be very fresh discussion.
So I think as well in capacity to love, compassion came there.
There's a spontaneous thing.
And also communication.
It's the willingness to talk about things, the willingness to understand, to have patience.
Yes.
And that is the all encompassing of what makes the feminine's capacity to love greater.
Because we consider all of those things.
We're deemed to be usually better communicators.
And I think it is because we can naturally be a little more patient.
We naturally come from a space of trying to understand the other person.
We naturally come from a place of where we want it to be loving and inviting and welcoming.
So that's all of our capacity to love.
Yeah.
And I think it's important to mention here that it's not about being a pushover.
Not about accepting everything.
Yes.
That's very important because throughout this list, some things will present a little resistance
in some people because they will associate it with being taken advantage of, being walked
over.
And that's not this.
It's quite the contrary, actually.
It's empowerment.
And I got that from you Heather.
I think that's a great way to highlight how it can be a strength for you because literally,
you are able to look at conversations and think about how is this an opportunity to
show more grace, compassion, love, understanding.
And that benefits us all.
Sometimes in the moment, it doesn't feel like that.
It feels like I'm giving in.
Or I'm being taken advantage of, but actually, no, you're quite in control when you can be
compassionate and show understanding and grace.
Yeah.
And you can choose not to be triggered.
You might get triggered, but you can choose not to react from that trigger.
Absolutely.
Oh, you're giving a lot of good gems too.
So the next one is spirituality, not religion, spirituality.
So your connection to whatever you deem is your higher power, your connection to your
source.
This is a feminine strength because even if you do look at religions and you look at
most churches, you're going to see the majority of women in there, not that there's no man
existent.
However, there's something innate about the feminine that is a connection, a direct connection
to the spirit, that woman's intuition, right?
It's actually a spiritual thing.
It's a spiritual thing.
It's a connection to your divine that gives you a knowing, a just innate confidence and
yeah, knowing.
I think knowing is the best way to put it.
You're reminding me, and this is a little bit of a tangent, but I once saw a lecture
about the artwork of different cultures where the deities were masculine and the deities
were feminine.
And the masculine were all about towers.
Not only enough.
Yeah.
I mean, you sort of sit in the UK, we've all got church towers with the bell then and
all of that.
And the female deities were all about the pattern on the ground, the overview.
And I think that's the quality of spirituality that you're talking about, the overview, the
interconnectedness.
And then it makes me close my eyes to think about it.
The deep inner voice.
That's what we do.
We go inside and listen.
Yes.
That's still a small voice.
That guy.
Yes.
Still a small voice.
That knowing, that just, it's so comforting.
Right.
And it's comforting, inwardly, when you connect with it and you, the more you trust it, the
more you are guided and aligned with things that just flow.
And that's why it's a feminine strength, like a feminine characteristic.
Yes.
Oh, I can't wait to hear you say some of these words.
Like, I'm just so excited about it.
I know you love my accent.
Yes, I do.
I absolutely do.
I'm like, she can say anything and it's great.
Delicacy.
And this is, I think this is another example where it's been deemed as like weak, you know,
not really categorized as a strength.
But in femininity, it's a softness, right?
It's a meekness.
This can also come out in your stance and stature, but also in your demeanor.
Right?
Are you, are you delicate when you talk?
Not abrasive.
And I mean, this is definitely something I've had to work on, you know, in my offenses and
my triggers before I realized, you know, my capacity to be able to control myself, I
would be abrasive.
I was not delicate in my approach at all.
I did not even factor in how beneficial it is to be delicate and to handle others with
delicacy.
Yeah.
And I think there's something as well, you know, the women's movement has given us all
so many freedoms, but it's also somehow devalued this side of things.
It's like we have to be the same as men.
And I mean, I think it causes all sorts of problems.
Yeah.
Physically, mentally, emotionally, you know, we have cycles to encounter as well.
And that doesn't necessarily go with a sort of industrialized society of a nine to five
or nine to seven or eight to six.
Right.
Yeah.
And for me, the delicacy is also the sense of refinement.
Yes.
I'm looking for the right word.
It is delicate, but it's sort of, I'm not sure I can find it.
Poise. Yeah.
Yeah.
You're picking up on my language, my body language.
Yeah.
It's poise.
Yeah.
And it's perception.
It's reflection.
Yeah.
All of those things which come from a delicacy position.
It's where the intuition comes from too.
There's a spirituality.
The delicacy is refinement.
And sweet perception.
Sweet.
Oh, that's one of my favorite words.
Growing up, that's what my mom used to always tell me.
She used to say, you know, be a lady, be sweet.
I'm like, I am sweet.
Yes.
Right.
Until I got older and matured is like, oh, there's a sweetness of demeanor too.
There's a sweetness of spirit.
There's just an innate delicacy.
Like it's just a softness, not weak though.
I love what you said about the perception.
It's like you have this overview awareness of things so you can kind of float in a softness
rather than feeling like you have to make your mark with a step.
Yeah.
You have to be seen and heard and isn't it interesting when we're both being sort of
definite and I put my fist into my hand to make a slap and you're slacking the table.
Yeah.
The complete opposite of delicate.
But you see how like it's counter.
It's counter.
The word that's coming to me now is a word that gets misused a lot superficial.
It's charm.
Oh, that's one of the that's on the list.
Yes.
Oh, yeah.
I see.
Yes.
Oh, you're perfect to talk about charm.
Like, it lights me up when I think about it.
So next on the list and I think we've entered a lot of these.
You don't know this.
They're interwoven, right?
They're related.
They're very similar.
They're symmetry in all of it.
So sensitivity.
And the way you can think of this is like your awareness, your awareness of others,
your awareness of your surroundings, right?
The environment, the moods, the temperatures.
You have a certain sensitivity.
This is not you're not a doormat.
That's that's not what this is.
A sensitivity is more like an awareness.
So you are sensitive to vibes, to feelings, to blows, to energies, right?
You're tapped in.
You have a deeper awareness of it.
The feel of things and the feel of people.
And how that contributes to what happens in that environment and what happens between
people.
Yeah.
And, you know, the sensitivity, it's obviously connected to spirituality, like you're in a
knowing and your connection.
But your awareness of others helps with your capacity to love as well.
So it's like if you develop a sensitivity to others' emotions, how they're communicating,
you develop like your eye for that.
You can tailor your approach.
You can tailor how you show up because you have now had a unique awareness of everything
and your sensitivity to it allows you to flow more easily from thing to thing conversation
to conversation.
Yeah.
And it's picking up on things like body language and tone.
Not just what's said, it's how it's said and the movement that goes with it.
Yes.
But sometimes I love the body language too because, you know, it's said that, you know,
for every like one word that a man is saying a woman said 70.
So sometimes you really have to tap into, oh, what's the stance?
What's his demeanor?
Like, you know, let me take into account all things that may be impacting this.
What's the environment here?
Where did he come from?
Like what is he juggling?
That again is our sensitivity, our level of awareness, our spiritual connection.
That is all the things that are innately like feminine when you tap in.
Yeah.
That create rapport and understanding.
Yeah.
The distress situations.
Oh, yes.
Deescalate as well.
Right.
Deescalate.
At one of Tasha's events, her husband Tony was talking about how he realized that he
had the changes in the police forces when they had women leadership because the women
were more equipped to deescalate.
Their plans for deescalation were at a different level because of their innate femininity.
They're tapping into what is our strength, right?
But it actually, you know, when out in the world, look, typically that's a masculine
job, right?
You think of police protection, things like that, but they know that having the women
in the leadership actually gives them the skills to not have to use force.
Absolutely.
And to learn about how they are in their own bodies.
So their mindfulness themselves can calm themselves down.
They don't have to think about shooting.
They have to think about what this person feeling and what am I feeling?
Which is quite an insight, isn't it?
Absolutely.
Oh, another one.
I'm going to love you here.
I'm going to love to hear you say.
Dignity.
Yeah.
I know you said you want me to talk about this one.
I think it's delightful to me that people from America hear my accent and assume that
I have dignity.
They see my pearls, you know?
Yes.
Assume something about me.
Believe me, I can get triggered with the best and effing blind with the best.
Do you know the word effing blind?
Do you know what that means?
No.
Swearing.
Okay.
You know, if I really get triggered and lose my femininity, that dignity is lost.
Yeah.
Dignity, I think, is a real sense of being in my own center, of feeling my own worth and
of value, of holding to a code of ethics and morals and polite behavior.
It can be assertive.
It doesn't, I'm not going with the Dormer either.
Certainly not.
Yeah.
But it is a sense of clear presence, raised presence, but real presence, present to myself,
present to the others in the room, present to the dynamics, present to the conversation
that holds its composure.
Yes.
That's what it is for me.
What is it for you?
You summarize it so well.
For me, it definitely is presence.
It definitely is an inner composure that shows outwardly.
It's refinement, right?
When I want to be, I want to present myself and show that I am a dignified woman, I carry
myself in a way where I'm fully aware.
I'm fully aware of my words.
I'm fully aware of my facial expressions, my body movements.
I'm fully aware of how I react to others.
I love how you point it out.
It's kind of like an inner code of ethics, right?
You're not letting anyone else define what your dignity is.
But it's you, first, connecting with what is your highest self?
What mark do you want to leave on the world so that others see you in a positive light?
They see you at your best.
That is what encompasses dignity to me.
Yeah.
It's a beautiful thing.
And it's become a cliché, but I think it's a cliché because it's so important to be your
best self.
Yes, absolutely.
Um, graciousness.
We've talked about, you know, grace and conversations and your awareness of others.
I believe that when you connect with your feminine, you will realize that you have a
reservoir of grace that just gets refilled and replenished the more you give it out.
And I believe that graciousness is like a gift to others.
You know, it's like gratitude.
It's accepting that we're humans, right?
We're living, well, with spiritual beings living a human existence, right?
We're realizing those human moments will occur and holding space for people on their journey,
right?
And giving them the grace necessary for them to elevate into their best selves.
Yeah.
Beautiful.
Beautifully put.
The word is generosity came to mind.
There was another word too that came.
Christ, generosity, I think it was the compassion piece again and appreciation.
Yes.
Appreciation.
Yes.
Definitely.
And that goes with dignity as sort of self appreciation as well as appreciation of others,
generosity to self and kindness to self as well as to others.
Yeah.
And I think that's, that's why I describe it as kind of like a reservoir because you're
first filling it, you're filling it because you're, you're gracious to yourself, right?
You, you learn how to be patient with yourself, you know, and as you grow in that, you're able
to extend it outward.
And the more you extend it outward, the easier it is for you to keep refilling it to do so.
Beautiful.
Um, um, I had some work to do in this area, but quiet strength.
And it's important for us to, you know, reiterate this is not accepting anything.
This is not going along with anything.
This is not laying down and being a doormat.
This is definitely not it.
But a quiet strength, I think is rooted in self confidence.
The point that you have released the need to seek approval and validation from others.
When you have a quiet strength, it is I'm confident in who I am.
I don't have to yell it.
I don't have to walk in a room and demand attention and demand that everyone looks at
me.
It's I show up beautifully, you know, and I flow where I'm supposed to.
I speak when I feel led to speak.
I engage when I'm improving the silence, you know, a quiet strength.
Mm, that's lovely, that's lovely.
And that makes me think about the way that you can hold people with silence.
It's a different sort of presence.
Yes.
Um, I watched a head talk and I forget the gentleman's name, but he literally talked
about how you can become a better speaker, influencer, coach, if you can learn to sit
in the silence.
So like when you say a thought and maybe you would fill it in with, um, um, um, instead
of doing that, just say the thought and allow the silence and be okay with it, be comfortable
with the silence and move forward.
And he talked about how that is more impactful for a listener, but it also builds the confidence
of the speaker.
I said, hmm, that's, that's good.
I try to keep that in mind.
Yeah.
That's like your self-pause.
Yes.
So why it's.
Um, you just gave me another thought inspired another thought.
Um, a quiet strength is holding your piece, right?
So learning that in every conversation, you don't have to have a rebuttal.
You don't have to have the last word.
You don't have to prove a point.
There becomes a time when you can realize, hmm, my energy is not needed here or my energy
is not well invested here.
I can, I can allow the person to have their thoughts and, oh, okay.
That's a different perspective.
Mm.
And just allow.
Yeah.
I agree and when you can feel, you know, sometimes I can feel tension rising with my
partner and I can choose whether I invest in that.
You know, if you've stressed and he's a bit snarky, you know, I can say, I'm going to
take that personally and snark back.
And occasionally I get caught, you know, I'm a working person like everybody else.
And both of us actually are learning to pinpoint the danger points in our lives.
And when we get there, we can say, ah, you know, we could do that again.
Do you want to do that?
No, I don't want to do that.
No, but I do not.
I do not want to do that.
That's really cool.
I think my husband and I were in that space too, where it's not a matter of, oh, we're
never going to disagree and we're not in law land, right?
We're humans and we know things are going to happen, but we have kind of developed this
pattern of seeing it before it like seeing the triggers in the warning signs before something
can get out of hand and being able to say, no, I'm not going to engage in that clearly
he's in this space or clearly I'm in this space and realizing when you can just let
it go like you don't have to engage.
So that is a very quiet strength.
Like that's a stance you can take.
You can have absolutely.
It's really important.
And it goes back to what those little phrases you were saying about not needing to have
the last word, not needing to be a little bit, not getting into conversation, not getting
into confrontation or having to be right.
Sometimes there's a choice between knowing you're right and knowing you're loving.
That's right.
And like it's like, do we want to be debate partners or, you know, or do we want to partner
in happiness?
Do we want to partner in peace?
Do we want to partner in love?
You know, like what type of experience are you trying to have and what's really important?
Is it important to have that last word or do that?
Is that what's important?
And if there's an issue, is now the time to talk about it or should we wait till we both
calm?
Yes.
When we're not in this energy, that's not producing the results we want, you know?
Yeah.
All right, Heather, talk about charm.
Talk about charm.
It's beautiful.
It goes back.
It's beautiful.
It goes with dignity and grace.
It goes with being the oil in the machine, being attentive to people, smoothing the way.
Oh, smoothing the way.
I like that.
That to me.
Okay.
And I mean, I think it's important to talk about charm with femininity because normally
when you hear charm, isn't it like Prince charming?
And that usually what we hear, right?
But when you think about men when they're like enamored with women, it's usually her
charm that has gotten them.
Like we know beauty.
Okay.
We understand that.
But there's millions of beautiful women.
What would stand out more is a presence.
Or charm, how you can kind of, I see it as like a spark.
It's like that little glimmer of light that you have that no one else has.
That's what I see as like charm.
Yes.
And it's, when you're saying that, I was just looking at a face in your eyes sparkled.
Yeah.
That's it.
So it's like that contact across the room, the eye contact across the room that has
some charm and sparkle in it.
Yeah.
And it's not superficial because it has a bad name as well as the sort of a con artist
charm, you know?
Yeah.
That's not what we're talking about.
We're talking about beauty and grace in being.
And I just want to, I don't know, I feel a tug like part of my intuition is to encourage
some of the viewers that might think they don't have charm.
We all have charm.
We all do.
It's something about you.
So it's not a comparative thing.
It's not like, oh, let me speak quick.
Heather.
No, Heather has her.
That's Heather's charm.
You know?
It's a little.
Yeah.
It's something that when you connect with yourself and love on yourself more and start
to accept yourself more, you will notice your charm.
You will notice that light that you have that no one else has.
Yeah.
I mean, you can just look at it in terms of our experience and our expression and our
appearance even.
Now, having the little pearls lady, I'm the sort of soft glow in the dark.
And you've got much more dynamism than that.
What's the word drama about you?
You know?
Yes.
Yeah.
And that's part of all a different allure.
Yes.
Oh, you're saying all the good words that I love?
So I mean, that's our list just to kind of recap what we've covered.
You know, capacity to love spirituality, your connection to your higher power, delicacy,
your softness, your approach, sensitivity known as awareness, right?
Your dignity.
That's also presence, your inner.
What's the word you said?
It was almost like your, what is the word?
I'm trying to connect back to what you said, but it was almost like how you, not characteristic,
but your, almost like your moral compass, your inner.
Oh, yes.
That.
Yeah.
Graciousness, your quiet strength and your charm.
So those are the main feminine characteristics that we're hoping you see as core strengths.
The, I did have two bonuses if you want them.
Oh, yeah.
So the first ones are all about being you.
Yes.
And what are the bonuses ones?
Now the bonuses are more for outward, right?
The, the core strengths that we mentioned, they all develop like inward and can extend
outward.
So it's beautiful.
But these two bonuses are more for the benefit of connection, relationship.
So, and this is specifically to women.
So you can kind of flop it if it's, it doesn't relate to you, but it's the ability to understand
men or masculinity.
Okay.
So if you have this awareness of the feminine, you, it will be a strength to you if you have
an awareness of the masculine as well.
That is going to help in your communication.
It's going to help in how you, your presence and how you show up.
It's literally going to make it easier for you to flow in femininity because you know
the, the polar opposite.
So it's sometimes it can make it easier for you to identify as well when you're not flowing
because you have an awareness of the masculine and you can, you can identify when it's that
and not the feminine.
You have anything to add to that.
Beautiful.
And it's a really good thing to look at the mirror and Alison Armstrong, I don't know
if you know her work, she talks about these, these qualities of masculinity and femininity.
And we are bridging the two as we speak because she talks about femininity as diffuse awareness.
And that is, attunement to all sorts of things and people in our room.
So you as a mom know how your kids are feeling when they're upstairs in the room.
You just intuitively know there's something going on.
Yeah.
And that's what's for awareness.
And she talks about men being single focused and wanting to be to the point and here today,
you know, that's why we have to practice our communication and understanding of men because
we're talking about lots of things, but we are making points.
That's right.
Oh, that's good.
And then the final bonus is your natural feminine nature.
I come across so many women that they are just very disconnected from their femininity.
Some have made the choice to.
Some it's because of circumstance and, you know, being required to kind of lean more
on their masculine for survival.
But there's a focus here on reconnecting to natural.
And the way that you can do this is to start to just sit in stillness.
This has really helped me.
Learning how to quiet your mind.
Learning how to distinguish between the thoughts that are yours and the thoughts that have
come from others, from influence, right?
That they don't feel good to you when you sit in stillness and allow yourself to just
meditate on them.
So this is a way that you can reconnect back.
So this is sort of letting go of the shoulds and all.
Yeah.
Oh, that's good.
Yes, absolutely, all of the things that you have maybe created these unnecessary standards
or unnecessary goals and things that don't even align with what feels natural to you because
you should do a thing or you ought to do a thing.
That's great.
Oh, thank you, Deanna.
This is absolutely lovely.
Oh, yes.
This is good.
So let me tell people how they can find you.
So you have a website which is destination Deanna and Deanna is dio m a and that's dot
com.
She's got a business mobile, which is zero one or plus one if you're over here.
Two oh sorry two one four four three seven.
Oh, you know, I'm directly dyslexic.
I think you better read this out because I'm on.
One four four three four seven eight nine seven.
Thank you.
You can find her on social media on YouTube destination Deanna and Instagram same Facebook
groups and love attraction communities.
Her main Facebook group are part of that and that's absolutely wonderful to belong to.
And she's got a new membership group, which is love attraction and that is at Sam cart
dot com and you can enroll there.
We'll put all of this in the show notes so that you can find a season.
Yes.
Thank you so much.
Thank you for having me.
This is a great discussion.
Can't wait for part two.
Me too.
That's lovely.
Thank you, Fiona.
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of revolutionize your love life.
I'd like to know what has been your biggest takeaway from this conversation.
Do take a minute and share this with us and visit us on our Facebook page.
You can connect with me personally on my email at Heather at HeatherGarbutt.com
If you can think of someone who will benefit from listening to this podcast, please do
share it with them.
If you have any feedback on how I can improve it, please do reach out to me as I'm always
keen to learn more.
Thank you so much again for listening and we'll meet again on the next episode of revolutionize
your love life.
Thank you.
[music]
this time I'll see you next summer.
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