Breaking the silence is not just about telling your story. It’s about ending the inner negotiation that says, “Maybe it’s not that bad,” and finally choosing yourself.

In Part Two of the ANEW Insight Podcast, Dr. Supatra Tovar continues the conversation with Rosie Aiello to explore what happens after you begin waking up to toxic patterns: how culture trains women to people-please, why forgiveness is misunderstood, how love-bombing works, and how self-trust returns through the body.

Why So Many Survivors Stay Silent

The cultural messages that train women to endure

Rosie shares that after speaking with women worldwide, the patterns sound shockingly familiar, like everyone was married to the same person. A major reason is conditioning: women are taught to be the caretakers, the peacekeepers, the ones who smooth everything over.

When “just stay” becomes generational advice

Many survivors don’t only face pressure from a partner, they face pressure from family systems shaped by survival beliefs. When mothers and grandmothers say, “I stayed, so you should too,” it reinforces silence as loyalty.

How we break the cycle

Rosie’s answer is simple and powerful: we break it by naming it publicly and teaching women and girls what healthy relationships actually look like.

Healthy vs Unhealthy Relationships: What Most Women Were Never Taught

Why awareness changes everything

Rosie emphasizes that women need both sides of the education:

• What healthy love looks like
• What unhealthy relationship dynamics look like

Because many survivors don’t realize certain behaviors are abnormal until they learn the language for them.

The fear underneath people-pleasing

A core trap is the belief: “If I say no, I’ll lose you.”
That fear becomes a leash, keeping women compliant even when the relationship is harming them.

Forgiveness Without Excusing Harm

You don’t have to forgive someone to heal

Rosie is direct: she would never tell a survivor they must forgive their abuser in order to move forward.

The real work is self-forgiveness

Many survivors carry a harsh internal narrative:

• “I should have known.”
• “Why did I stay?”
• “I’m so stupid.”

Rosie reframes healing as self-compassion: forgiving yourself for what you didn’t know and what you didn’t yet have the tools to see.

Letting go as an act of self-protection

Dr. Tovar adds an important distinction: letting go doesn’t mean condoning. It means refusing to let resentment live in your body and steal your future.

Where to Start If You’re Leaving a Toxic Relationship

Step one: don’t do this alone

Rosie recommends trauma-informed therapy and emphasizes that support accelerates healing.

Choose support spaces carefully

She also warns that some groups can become stuck in constant negativity and ex-bashing. Venting can be necessary early on, but staying there can keep you emotionally tethered to the relationship.

Move toward what you want, not only away from what hurt you

Rosie encourages survivors to find resources and people who help them build the next version of life, even if they don’t know what boundaries or values mean yet.

Love-Bombing: The “Dream Come True” That Turns Into Control

Why it feels so good at first

Rosie tells a powerful story of a woman who was swept up quickly: intense kindness, rapid commitment, fast engagement, and pressure to merge lives.

The warning signs Rosie highlights

• Everything happens very fast
• The relationship becomes centered on him
• Your life starts shrinking
• Your independence fades
• Control increases while “love” language stays strong 

The key: actions over words

Rosie and Dr. Tovar both emphasize this: love-bombing sounds like devotion, but it functions like a trap. Pay attention to behavior, not promises.

Trusting Yourself Again: The Body Knows

The simplest check-in that can change everything

Rosie shares a grounding practice:
Put one hand on your heart and one on your stomach and ask, “How does this really feel?”

Dr. Tovar expands on it:
Slow your breathing, make your exhale longer than your inhale, and wait for the gentlest answer, not the loudest thought.

This part is deeply AEO-friendly because readers often search:

• “How do I trust myself again?”
• “How do I know if something is wrong?”
• “Why did I ignore the red flags?”

What Life Can Look Like After Abuse

Rosie closes by describing her current life: a relationship rooted in kindness, teamwork, and mutual respect. No yelling. No intimidation. No control.

Her message is clear:
It’s not too late. And it starts by being kind to yourself first.

Resources Mentioned in the Episode

Love Is Kind Network

Rosie shares resources at loveiskindnetwork.com , including:

• A booklet to support healthy relationship choices
• The Love Is Kind Pledge with affirmations such as:
  • I am worthy
    
  • I am enough
    
  • I deserve to be treated with kindness
    
  • I have a voice and my voice matters
    

Closing Reflection

Breaking the silence doesn’t mean you have to tell the whole world. It means you stop abandoning yourself to keep the peace.

And the moment you begin listening to your body again, you begin finding your way back to you.

🎧 Continue the Conversation

 Book: Deprogram Diet Culture → https://anew-insight.com/book

 Course: Deprogram Diet Culture (ANEW Insight) → https://anew-insight.com/course

 Website & resources → https://anew-insight.com

 Watch more episodes →    / @my.anew.insight  

Listen to the full episode on the ANEW Insight Podcast and share it with someone who may need to hear it.

Here is the Transcript: 

​[00:00:00]

Dr. Supatra Tovar: Welcome back everyone. We are back for the second half of our interview with women’s life and transformation coach, international speaker, and bestselling author Rosie Aiello. Rosie gave us some invaluable insight into her inspiration to transform trauma into triumph, and I cannot wait to learn more.

Dr. Supatra Tovar: Rosie welcome.

Rosie Aiello: Oh yes. So good to be here again.

Dr. Supatra Tovar: So good to have you. So as an international speaker and coach, what patterns do you see in the way culture and society silences survivors, and how can we break that cycle please?

Rosie Aiello: We kind of touched upon it, you know, the first time about how culture is. I have spoken to women in all parts of the [00:01:00] world, and I swear to God it was like we were all married to the same man and. This pattern of where we were talking about before where women have to be people please and we people please.

Rosie Aiello: We learn it from our mothers. We learn it just from society. We learn it from the television shows. The songs the. All of these things. And I think fortunately a lot of that’s changing, but still it’s so hardcore into we are the peacemakers, we are the givers, we are the caretakers, right? We do this and so well, if we wanna be likedand loved, well then we’ve gotta do that. So it’s very deep into the brain, right? It’s very, it goes very deep into the brain. And because it’s generational, it’s a hard pattern to break because then you’ve got your mother or your grandmother or your aunt well, what do you mean you’re leaving him?

Rosie Aiello: Why don’t you just stay? I’ve stayed. So you get those kinds of, that kind of languaging, I [00:02:00] believe. And, this, the same cultural pressure that I’ve described is in all these countries around the world,

Dr. Supatra Tovar: Okay.

Rosie Aiello: it’s there. It’s how women are treated, period. There, they’ll obviously exceptional women who are lucky enough not to succumb to this, but it is everywhere. And how do we break the cycle? We break the cycle for doing things like what you’re doing and what I’m doing, saying this is not the way women deserve to be treated. Period.

Dr. Supatra Tovar: Yes.

Rosie Aiello: And it doesn’t mean, obviously, that we don’t love our men, but men have. Men would, I just don’t get it because men would get so much more out of us, if they just treat it us kindly.

Rosie Aiello: This is a hard strugglebecause I think we’re kind of built with, well, we wanna be liked we wanna be shown as we’re kind. But women don’t understand, [00:03:00] I mean, I surely didn’t understand this is, you know, as was letting him, you know, taking the responsibility. Now I, after all this work, it’s like I didn’t know how to say no to him.

Rosie Aiello: I was like, oh, I’m gonna, I’m going to lose you if I don’t behave. Boy, does that keep you in? Keep you in line, right? So we ha women have to learn that’s not healthy.

Dr. Supatra Tovar: Yes.

Rosie Aiello: We have to learn what healthy relationships look like, the characteristics of healthy relationships and what unhealthy character relationships look like.

Rosie Aiello: Unhealthy characteristics, because you need both sides. You need to know, oh, I didn’t know that wasn’t normal.

Dr. Supatra Tovar: Yes, I think it’s, I think it’s actually transgenerational trauma at play because if you look back at the history of women, our safety, uh, really depended on us conforming, doing things that men wanted us to do [00:04:00] because physically we are not as strong as them, and they were overpowering us from the get go.

Dr. Supatra Tovar: But what I think is really hopeful, I’m praying, is that as we move along through each generation, I think women are becoming stronger and stronger, and learning how to break that pattern of conditioning. But it really does involve and what is necessary is this generation to look at their daughters right now

Rosie Aiello: Absolutely.

Dr. Supatra Tovar: And to make a decision.

Dr. Supatra Tovar: And I think we are in this, you know, very weird time right now where there’s a lot of return to like the trad wives and like the old traditional, like you’re supposed to be barefoot in the kitchen with, you know, being pregnant. I think that this, it’s so important now. That we educate young girls, that they have a voice, that they have rights, that they can create healthy boundaries.

Dr. Supatra Tovar: And when they do this, [00:05:00] they can realize a much fuller life and be able to seek out like-minded partners and mates that will respect them for who they are. Let’s pivot just for a second. Let’s talk about forgiveness. ’cause that’s a tough one.

Rosie Aiello: is is.

Dr. Supatra Tovar: of self or other, it played a big role in your healing journey.

Dr. Supatra Tovar: How do you guide clients to approaching forgiveness?

Rosie Aiello: Well, that’s exactly what you said. It’s a very tough subject. And there’s two things, like you were just saying, it’s just like there’s forgiveness of yourself and there’s forgiveness of the other person, so regarding forgiveness of the other person, that really is gonna depend on what they, what the person did and how you feel about it.

Rosie Aiello: I would never, ever say you have to forgive to go forward. I don’t think it’s healthy. I know that a lot of people will say you do that. I think that what’s much more important is that you learn to forgive yourself. That’s where you break free of the prison that has been. You [00:06:00] know, saying like, oh, I should have known. Why did I do that? I am so stupid. You know, the whole litany of putting yourself down, and that’s where the compassion really comes in. That’s so important. Self-compassion, self-kindness is so critical during these stages to, to be able to forgive yourself, to let go of what you didn’t know. We have to accept we didn’t know. nobody in their right mind would’ve gone into a toxic, scary, terroizing relationship had they known.

Dr. Supatra Tovar: Exactly. You know, I’ve always had a problem with the word forgiveness until I read this book called Forgive for Good by Dr. Luskin. He’s a Stanford professor, and the way that he couched. It was life changing for me. Basically, he termed forgiveness as a lingering resentment that circles around your [00:07:00] head like a low flying airplane that can never land, and he termed forgiveness in a way that was more about letting go of that resentment and how that frees you.

Dr. Supatra Tovar: So that doesn’t mean you’re condoning any behavior. What that person did to you was wrong. Period. End of story. I don’t care. There’s no, there is a definite morality to this whole thing. You don’t have to condone that behavior, but by letting it eat your, you know, away at your soul and housing that resentment in your body is toxic.

Dr. Supatra Tovar: And so if you can look at forgiveness as a, as a loving act of kindness for yourself to let go of what they did to you. Then you can move forward. And I think that’s so powerful. And it sounds like that’s a lot of the work that you are doing and it, you are doing it through a self-compassionate lens, which I think is beautiful.

Rosie Aiello: Yes, that’s [00:08:00] exactly right because if you’re, you know how I talking about before about negativity begets negativity. So if you’re constantly in the state of getting back

Rosie Aiello: That means you’re still ta you, you’ve lost your power again, this is all about losing your power. So you’ve lost your power again.

Rosie Aiello: As you’re just like, well, how can I get back? And which is how I was in the very beginning because I didn’t have the skills, and that’s okay to have to go through that pattern, but it’ll still hold you back if you don’t let it go and forgive yourself and be compassionate to yourself to move forward.

Dr. Supatra Tovar: Yes, absolutely. And I just encourage people go and read that book. It was really transformative for me. I, it really helped me understand that, forgiveness is more about letting go than it is about condoning any kind of behavior and you can move forward. He did a lot of work on the Protestants and the [00:09:00] Catholics in Ireland and all of that longstanding feud and how much that resentment kept fueling more and more fights and skirmishes.

Dr. Supatra Tovar: And he did a lot of work to actually help reduce that violence between the two groups. Brilliant stuff. Just really amazing. So as someone who rebuilt her life from the ground up, what advice would you give to women who are just beginning their journey of leaving a toxic relationship? How did they even start?

Rosie Aiello: Get support again, just don’t do this alone. I would, if you can, I, you know, highly advise getting a good qualified trauma therapist. you know, you mentioned about having a good connection, but I really think getting a good connection with a trauma therapist would be much advised

Dr. Supatra Tovar: Oh yes, of course.

Rosie Aiello: and there are a lot of. groups on Facebook, [00:10:00] and I know they’re supportive. I’ve seen them. I would just advise about what is the group doing? Because I’ve been, you know, I’ve looked at them from an observer point of view. I had already pretty much healed and stuff like that, they’re trashing the ex and they’re just going, it’s all negative.

Rosie Aiello: I, I, and I had to leave the group even though I was healed because there was too much negativity. Now for sure you need to get that out. You need to express yourself, but then there’s a point where it’s not gonna be helpful because you’ll stay in that negativity. It’s just like what you’re talking about, forgiveness, where you, if you’re staying in that negative energy of resentment and this and that, you’re not gonna be able to move forward.

Rosie Aiello: So be very careful when you’re doing that. Read books, read the Verbally Abusive Relationship. There are a lot of other books. Get connected with people who are going to uplift you to where you want to go as opposed to staying in by how [00:11:00] badly you were treated, how this, we were all badly treated. And you will move faster going forward if you go and afford in a, in the positive direction, you’re not gonna get there right away. I’m not gonna sugarcoat this. And everyone’s situation is different. How you grew up, your experiences, where you were in the world. All of this will will matter, but most important thing is that you can do it.

Rosie Aiello: Those, even if you don’t believe the mantra. I didn’t have a plan B for that escape. There was no plan B. I didn’t even know I didn’t have a plan B, I just knew this was going to work. And the same thing, having that deep belief that my, my life looks like blankety blank right now, but you know what? I can take a step forward and I can take another step forward. Yeah. I don’t know what boundaries means, but I’ll find out. [00:12:00] I don’t know what my values are, but I’ll find out. Just having that openness to learning to move forward and making sure that you’re surrounded by kind people who support you.

Dr. Supatra Tovar: Absolutely, and I would say anyone who’s in a financial situation where they might not think that they can leave, there are so many women’s shelters out there. There’s so many organizations that are open to helping women get back onto their feet. So that just requires a little bit of searching around.

Dr. Supatra Tovar: You certainly can do that if you’re actually in physical danger. You can do the hand signal of putting your thumb in and then your fingers over that and giving that to anybody that you know you might see on the street, especially if you need help right away. Getting into a safe space, I think is the first big step for anybody coming out of an abusive relationship.

Dr. Supatra Tovar: You’d be surprised how many people would want to help you. Even if you have family members who are encouraging [00:13:00] you to stay. There’s always going to be somebody who’s going to say, Nope, that is not okay for you, and you need to leave that and I can help you do that. Then getting into therapy if there’s

Dr. Supatra Tovar: a financial barrier to therapy. There’s a group called the Open Path Collective. It’s wonderful.

Dr. Supatra Tovar: They have a whole group, a collective group of therapists who offer either free or very, very low cost therapy to individuals who cannot afford it. You can also look if you like in California we have Medi-Cal.

Dr. Supatra Tovar: If you are very low income, you can go and seek and find a therapist through there as well. And so there’s a lot of ways to be able to get help, community mental health centers and, you know, certain community mental health centers are really wonderful because they not only provide you therapists, they provide help linking you with housing, linking you with financial aid, trying to get job information for you so you can find meaningful work.[00:14:00]

Dr. Supatra Tovar: So there’s plenty of people out there who really want to help, especially women, women and children, find health and safety. And, you know, a removal from that toxic environment. So, Rosie, you’ve written, spoken, and coached globally. What’s one story of transformation from your clients that has deeply touched you?

Rosie Aiello: Yeah, I wanna share this story because, it has lots of aspects to it. So this is actually a friend of mine who I ended up coaching, and she was telling me she was living on the East Coast at the time, she met this guy online, which is really common these days she just, she was just, he was just wonderful to her. He was so kind and just, treated her like a queen, and that’s how she wanted to be treated. and he says, you know, look, [00:15:00] he came out to visit her and he says, I want you to come back with me. I mean, I just wanna be with you all the time. So before she knew it, she had sold everything, put what she could in her car and drove across the United States to Washington State and moved in with him, and I’m listening to her because now I’m not at the stage of coaching her yet. Okay. But the bells were ringing in my head

Rosie Aiello: And. She says, yeah, and he wants me to help him with his business ’cause she was a dynamic, she was a speaker on stage, successful entrepreneur, dynamite personality. Just a dynamite personality. And so she said, yeah, and wants me to do this, and then he wants me to travel with him ’cause he has this business.

Rosie Aiello: And I go, okay. And I go, well, what about you? She goes, well, I’ll just do that on the side. So already I want people to see the pattern that [00:16:00] happens, right? The pattern that happens. So I go, okay. And so I started to try to bring to her attention what things were happening again, she didn’t ask for my advice yet, or for my coaching. And then one time he grabbed her hair. Pulled her hair, that’s not a good sign. And then she called me. Rosie, I need help. I go, okay. And that was probably about a month and a half into the relationship and she says, I don’t know what to do. We got engaged. Oh. So this is another pattern where everything goes, it is called love bombing,

Dr. Supatra Tovar: Yes.

Rosie Aiello: Where everything is good and everything is sweet, and they say all the right words and who, if you’ve [00:17:00] felt that you grew up and you didn’t have enough love in your life, and you’re finally finding somebody who gives this to you, it’s just like, honey to you.

Rosie Aiello: It’s so sweet and it feels good, but if it’s really fast. Some marriages. I know they got married a month later and it’s, they’ve lasted for 20 years, but there are warning signs here. Everything was really fast and it’s all about him. And you just start to disappear. She could not, I swear. This may sound gross, she could not go to the bathroom the door closed.

Dr. Supatra Tovar: Oh my goodness.

Rosie Aiello: So she goes, I’m getting outta here. I go, okay. She leaves. And I’m talking to her in the car. She goes, he started to follow me. He’s he wants me back. He loves me. I go, what are you gonna do? She goes, I don’t know. I go, you know, maybe he needs some time away. And as I was coaching her, just trying to bring [00:18:00] alive what was healthy and what wasn’t healthy. But the dynamics of these kinds of personalities are very strong, right? It’s very strong. And so she goes back, I knew she was gonna go back. I could feel that she was gonna go back. So she went back. And then Rosie, I need you. I go, you deserve to be treated with kindness. You deserve a man who respects you. You are a dynamic woman. I had to remind her who she really was deep down, and I had to keep reminding her. And we plotted, her second escape, which was the final escape. This happened within two, two and a half months of the love of her life

Rosie Aiello: so she thought to this being entrapped, how everything [00:19:00] happened so quickly. She sold everything. She didn’t have a home. She had just what was in her car. He wanted to her to move in with him. He wanted her to do work with him and his business, even though he was quite vague. And she said, oh, yeah, well, I can do my work in the truck.

Rosie Aiello: Well, he was doing blah, blah, blah. You know, and she made excuses and excuses. And then the mistreatment got bigger and bigger. And even though he said the words, I love you, you’re the love of my life. You have to watch for their actions.

Dr. Supatra Tovar: Of course.

Rosie Aiello: And, as I was doing this she just like to this day, just thanks me to no end for helping her get out and stay out of that relationship. And she is now with somebody and she’s doing fabulous because that’s who I know, who she was

Dr. Supatra Tovar: Yes,

Rosie Aiello: On

Dr. Supatra Tovar: I.

Rosie Aiello: commanding a whole audience of thousands of people.

Dr. Supatra Tovar: Yes. I think that there’s a really important takeaway from the story. There’s many important [00:20:00] takeaways, but really wanna hone in on the love bombing. I think that is the most insidious and the most common tactic that an abuser will employ to bring in the person that they’re trying to control.

Dr. Supatra Tovar: And so it’s so important to look at their behavior in the very beginning. If it is just a quote, dream come true, you may wanna look at that with less rose colored glasses and really look at that as red flag behavior because somebody who is very sure of himself has his own life is, you know, really doing wonderful stuff, will not engage in love bombing. Will

Dr. Supatra Tovar: think about progressing a relationship slowly, and I also think it’s really important to look at your need or your desire for that. I think it comes from a very [00:21:00] deep place. It’s usually an unmet need from your childhood. Usually something happened in your childhood that makes you drawn toward that, and that’s, I think, what they look out for in terms of bringing in the person that they wanna control.

Dr. Supatra Tovar: So resolving that need in yourself before you even seek out a relationship is going to be one of your best bets in terms of finding a very healthy relationship. And that’s not to say that a, a man who gives you know flowers and is wonderful and is polite. Yes, we want that. Yes, that is very important.

Dr. Supatra Tovar: And I think manners and kindness are everything. But when you see it being too much, too fast, too soon. Red flags should go up,

Rosie Aiello: Yeah, and I just wanna just

Rosie Aiello: This is when to really fill into your intuition. Listen to yourself. Put your hand on your heart. Put your hand on your stomach, and go, [00:22:00] how’s this really feeling to me?

Rosie Aiello: Just closing those eyes. And so I just wanted to add, this is a real key time.

Dr. Supatra Tovar: Absolutely, and this is something that I do with my clients all the time, whether it’s to resolve, you know, whatever’s happening in their life or disordered eating disorders, you know, anything. We really do have this amazing still small voice inside of us, and I think that we’ve been conditioned to not listen to it and to not trust it.

Dr. Supatra Tovar: But it is the most important voice that you can listen to in your life and you can tap into that by regulating your nervous system first .You have to get outta your head. ’cause I like to say, you know, the mind can be a jerk, but the body really loves you.

Dr. Supatra Tovar: Try to let your mind go offline for a little bit.

Dr. Supatra Tovar: Slow down your breathing. Get some nice inhales. Make sure the exhale’s longer than the inhale, and let your body relax. Then close your eyes. Go within [00:23:00] and ask yourself the question that is most on your mind, and just wait for the most gentle answer, not the up here you know, conditioned mind. The answer that’s coming from your heart and from your body.

Dr. Supatra Tovar: And I will tell you this, it is never wrong. Never wrong. Most people who come out of these relationships say, I ignored that voice. Listen to that voice. It’s the most important thing you can do.

Rosie Aiello: Yeah,

Dr. Supatra Tovar: Rosie, what does life look like for you now? What is coming down the pike for you and how can people come to work with you and find out more about.

Rosie Aiello: I am with the love of my life. When I landed in the United States, back in the United States, never in a million years, it wasn’t even on top of my mind. I told you I couldn’t stand to look at a man. And it was funny I met him online he had the same primary value as I did kindness. [00:24:00] And that was the beginning, right? And we said. We never yell at each other. We have mutual respect. We’re team players. In fact, it’s like, oh, you wanna discuss that with me? ‘Cause my ex would never discuss things. He would make decisions on my behalf. We’re great team players. I just, I have never felt such love in my entire life. I feel so blessed. And let me tell you ladies, it doesn’t matter how old you are, right? I mean, when I landed I was in my mid fifties and I’ve been here for quite a while now, and it’s just undescribable the love I feel for this man and the love I feel from him and how true it is. And it’s worth everything. And my desire is for women to, to feel, to be able to experience that love, that kind love, right? It has to be that kind love. There is a difference. And when you [00:25:00] do that. you’ll, your life will just expand. So

Dr. Supatra Tovar: I love it.

Rosie Aiello: As we go through this, just know that you deserve to be treated with kindness, and it starts first by being kind to yourself. That’s the pattern. So you can reach me at the loveiskindnetwork.com. I have lots of gifts for you there. There’s a little, booklet you can get to sh how you can get into a kind relationship. And then there’s something else I want everybody in the world to get. It’s called the Love is Kind Pledge.

Rosie Aiello: This is something my daughter and I wrote, and you can view it as this, the beginning steps of a mantra, right? I am worthy, I am enough. I deserve to be treeated with kindness. I have a voice and my voice matters. All these short phrases and to abide by that and just remind yourself of who you want to become if you’re not there yet.

Dr. Supatra Tovar: I love this and we’ll, we’ll have [00:26:00] that link in the show notes and all of her, uh, other links and information for you all. Rosie, thank you so much. Your story is really inspiring and I hope it helps people who might be trapped in relationships that are very, very harmful for them find their way towards health, stability, and kindness.

Dr. Supatra Tovar: So thank you, Rosie.

Rosie Aiello: Thank you for giving me this opportunity. It was a pleasure to be with you.

Dr. Supatra Tovar: Yes, and thank you everyone for joining me. I’m looking forward to our next exciting interview, and I really hope you join me next time. Bye everybody.

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