Episode 189: How to Claim Peace and Ditch Shame, with "These Broken Roads" Author, Donna Marie Hayes

Nov 7, 2023

Normally, because of how I was raised, I would steer clear of anything that was confrontational because I wanted to keep the peace. But I started to wonder, whose peace was I keeping?

~ Donna Marie Hayes

How many times have you avoided confrontation to “keep the peace?” How many times have you explained away red flags in relationships or situations because you couldn’t or wouldn’t face your own doubts and fears?

After experiencing great loneliness during her childhood, Donna Marie Hayes felt she was on sure footing. After two failed marriages, Donna took eight years being on her own to build a strong personal foundation. But in her mid-50’s, Donna wanted companionship, and found the “love of her life” through an online dating site. For 18 months, her relationship blossomed, until it came crashing down and she discovered she had been scammed, losing all of her money to a man who professed to love her. 

On this episode of the Brilliantly Resilient podcast, Donna talks about how her childhood traumas remained to cause her to deny and deflect obvious red flags because she so wanted her relationship to be what it appeared to be on the surface. And once she realized she had been scammed, she fell into a place of shame, not wanting anyone to know what she felt she had allowed to happen to her.

As we say in Brilliantly Resilient, it was when Donna armed herself with the truth that she was able to transfer her shame to her abuser, find her peace and later, to use her experiences to help other women rebuild their lives after devastating experiences.

To learn more, tune into this episode of the Brilliantly Resilient podcast, and check out Donna’s appearance on The Tamryn Hall Show as she talks about her book, These Broken Roads: Scammed and Vindicated, One Woman’s Story.

Be sure to listen for these additional bits of Brilliance:

• I thought those eight years of just being by myself prepared me for this, but I got sucked right in, because he was so nice, because I needed that. I needed it to be real, I wanted it to be real. I talked around it (the red flags).

• How are you showing up in life? Are you showing up diminished? Are you showing up with self-limiting beliefs or are some of your childhood traumas showing up in your adult life? We can’t predict what we are going to do; we have to do some self-reflection.

• The common thread was shame. I decided to tell the story so the next woman who Googles his name is going to see what he did. I’m not going to wear your shame. You wear it.

• How can I repurpose my pain? How can I use it to benefit others?

Let’s be Brilliantly Resilient together!

XO,

Mary Fran & Kristin