Choose Love Anyway

Happy Thursday! Thank you so much for listening to last weeks episode and giving us so much love and sharing your experiences with us too! We feel so much peace having it out there now and are hopeful it will continue to help others feel less alone as they navigate their faith journeys and transitions!

In this episode we continue our conversation about religion but focus more on our current beliefs and opinions! Dalia shares some of her top tools and we will share more below as well! We continue our discussion of the stages of faith and how we have found that the idea applies to many parts of our life. We do make mention of sexual assault and talk about complicated topics so this may not be the episode to listen to around your kids. Use your own discretion of course. (:

Good morning loves,

This weeks’ episode is a personal and tender one. We have wanted to share our journey with religion but hadn’t felt ready to in the past and this just felt like the right time for us. We know this can be a sensitive topic and we have people in our lives who we love and respect that we would never want to offend and we tried our best to share our own experience and not share too many opinions in this one.

We share about what our childhood looked like and the different religions we were exposed to from the time we were babies all the way to our teenage years. We talk about our experience of joining a religion and what lead us to that choice. We try to share our story chronologically but there is some jumping around, we hope you feel our love and gratitude for our nuanced and very different journeys with religion! Dalia uses the term faith transition to describe her journey and so we wanted to include the definition here for anyone who isn’t familiar with the term:

“It is the ongoing process of questioning, reevaluating, and shifting one's religious or spiritual beliefs, practices, or community framework.”

Another concept that we talk about is the “stages of faith” - Dalia was specifically referencing Brian McLarens incredible book on this topic called Faith After Doubt where he talks about the four stages of faith and here they are below:

    1. Simplicity (Faith Before Doubt)

    2. Complexity (Learning and Pragmatism)

    3. Perplexity (Doubt and Deconstruction)

    4. Harmony (Faith After Doubt)

McLaren views doubt not as the opposite of faith, but as a normal, healthy doorway to a deeper, more resilient spiritual life. He also speaks of the journey through these stages as an experience that isn’t strictly linear; people can cycle through these stages repeatedly “like rings on a tree as they encounter new life phases or challenges.”

We will have a part two to this episode and that will have more of our current beliefs and opinions as well as more tools that helped us in our journeys. Dalia will share some of her poetry on this topic and other authors, therapists and podcasts/organizations that have helped her and Derek navigate a faith transition together and what helped them to navigate it with love and grace for each other. If you don’t feel like you can hold our story and yours at the same time we understand and we ask that you just follow your heart and know that we do not mean to hurt anyone in sharing our story.

We have felt called to share this now because we’ve had many approach us on the topic, and one of the many reasons we started this podcast was to share our journey with healing and finding the joy in life as we navigate really complicated parts of it like faith transitions and changes in belief and how that impacts our relationships. Just as much as we don’t want to offend or hurt others we also more importantly don’t want to miss a chance to help loved ones and people out there that feel alone and like there is something wrong with them when they find their beliefs changing and evolving.

We believe there’s space for everyone’s story and we hope that we can also inspire you to not shy away from respectful and loving conversations about beliefs and others’ experiences with religion that don’t look like your own.

We are always sending love to you all and are grateful that you continue to tune in and listen to us share what is helping us move through life with more light, love and resilience.

love always,

Dalia and Dina <3

Thank for all the love and and for listening to our first 2 episodes of this season! We continue to move through this season of our lives with vulnerability and sharing about how we have been learning to surrender the false sense of control and what it means to us to truly trust the flow of life.

Dina gives us some updates on her life and what it’s been like being in what feels like limbo. She also explains her process of how she decides what assignments she will accept as a travel nurse and what’s next for her as this contract is coming to an end in a couple of weeks and she will be moving out of Derek and Dalia’s home. ):

Dalia shares about what it was like to send her girls off to school daily for the first time and the releasing of fears she had to go through and what it’s been like since the start of the school year!

We get through the confusing and complicated parts of our lives with lots of laughter and so this season we have decided to leave the giggles in because we feel like that is one of the simplest ways we choose love anyway in our life and is a big part of our relationship, and what we will miss most about living together!

We hope you’ll find some inspiration in this episode if you’re in a season of needing to release control because it’s just too exhausting to keep white knuckling life…we believe in you and are always here if you need us to cheer you on!! <3

Sending love always!

Dalia and Dina <3

We are excited to be sharing the second episode of this season with you today. We hope you enjoyed catching up with us last week and are ready to dive deep this week. We start out the episode talking about Dina’s recent weekend getaway to Vermont, you can watch her YouTube vlog of her trip here (https://youtu.be/Cg-VlNG5lKM?is=rd_e32xYrHyG4Q61).

We then discuss something that we have been thinking a lot about lately which is the vulnerable truths of shared nervous systems in relationships and the difference Dina has noticed of what her nervous system is like when she is in a relationship vs. when she isn’t. Dalia shares about how her and Derek celebrated 10 years of marriage this summer and what their experience has been like starting couples therapy and why they decided to start. (: There’s so many powerful thoughts in this one and we don’t hold back. We feel so lucky to get to do this together so thank you for continuing to listen. It means the world to us. <3

If you think of someone while you are listening to this episode, please feel free to share it with them. (:

Dalia is also starting to take a few new clients again so if you or anyone you know is looking for a coach that offers what she does, please feel free to reach out to her at - [email protected]

Sending love to you all always!

Dalia and Dina <3

Hello loves,

Welcome back, the time has flown by and we are here for Season 2, we didn’t mean to take as long as we did to come back but we’ve had a lot of changes this summer and needed some time to adjust. In this episode we will catch you up on where Dalia is now living since she has now made the move that we talked about in Season 1, and

how Connecticut is currently home to not just her but also Dina…surprise we are roommates. (: We talk a little about what it has been like to have Dina living with us. Dalia shares about what the process of grieving California looked like and settling into their new home.

So many updates are shared like Dina starting a YouTube channel. We left a few of our silly moments as well. We are hoping to be a bit more unfiltered this season and share more about the experience of how we are using the tools in real time in our lives that we shared in the previous season. We have been navigating some hard transitions and finding ways to choose love anyway along the way has been rewarding but challenging at times.

We are so excited to be back and recording together in person on Dalia’s front porch (one of our favorite places to be anytime of the day with a yummy drink.) <3

Sending love to you all always,

Dalia and Dina <3

link to Dina's youtube: https://youtube.com/@dina.elizabeth?si=ZrKmYMZJt-zNMloS

Today’s episode is our season finale. We feel so grateful that so many of our friends and family have been tuning in every week, and listening to us and the episodes we thoughtfully prepared and recorded. It feels pretty surreal that we finally got to follow through with a dream that we’ve had for years…<3 Our hearts are full of love and gratitude for each of you!!!

This is a really fun episode where we very openly talk about the intimate relationships in our lives. Dalia shares and answers vulnerable questions about her marriage and her experience and thoughts on waiting till marriage to be sexually intimate. She also shares tools that have really helped nurture a healthy and loving marriage the last 10 years. Dina opens up about dating, and how she is implementing and practicing what she has learned along her journey having been married and divorced in her 20’s. We hope you enjoy listening to this one as much as we did recording it. We got a little carried away so its a longer episode but since it’s our last one of the season we felt like it was needed. (;

We tried to be honest and respectful with this conversation and hope that you feel that in our words. Here are a few of the other things that we shared in this episode:

    •    Dalia references this podcast episode from Faith Matters called The God Who Waits. (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/faith-matters/id1307757928?i=1000757998475) - “To love is to be inherently vulnerable.”

    •    Here are some links to the books shared in this episode That We Might Have Joy (https://a.co/d/0iKEgWWk) by Jennifer Finlayson-Fife (JFF), Gift From the Sea (https://a.co/d/02Ta8SRp) by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, 8 Rules of Love (https://a.co/d/04e1zytU) by Jay Shetty.

    •    Here is a link to our episode on Spotify about how we nurture and navigate female friendships in our lives:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/48tthhsvkbKEy6j858yP0T?si=UAWyh748SZeTXR3ezggzHA

    •    The note Dalia read at the end of the episode to summarize the episode inspired by the work of JFF: “When two people are willing to grow, tell the truth, and stay present with each other, marriage/relationships become one of the most powerful places for joy, intimacy, and spiritual growth.”

    •    The quote shared from a video (https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8gLyvax/) Dalia saw by Maddi Castellano:

“Remember to marry a man who wants to be a husband and a father, not have someone who wants a wife and kids.”

We hope you have a gorgeous day and we will see you next season!! <3

Sending love always,

Dalia and Dina <3

In this week's episode, we talk about faith, surrender and learning to trust ourselves and God during seasons of change.

We share some personal news like Dalia’s upcoming move, and the beginning of a new chapter, and reflect on how transitions can bring both excitement and vulnerability. Along the way, we explore the psychology of faith and hope, the power of trusting your life has meaning and how believing that things can work out can actually support resilience in our minds and nervous systems.

We also reflect on a passage from Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet about living the questions, and what it means to allow life to unfold without needing to know every answer.

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books written in a very foreign tongue.

Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given to you because you would not be able to live them.

And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now.

Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

As we talked, we found ourselves getting a little emotional about this big change. <3 But we also noticed something wonderful as we reflected on how our faith has evolved. Instead of fear being our knee-jerk reaction, we felt a deeper sense of peace, trust, and hope for the future. That realization felt incredibly comforting, and it’s something we’re genuinely proud of.

A takeaway from our conversation in Episode 9 that Dalia prepared. We felt like it really captured the theme of this episode:

“Fear tries to convince us that the unknown is dangerous. But every meaningful chapter of our lives began in the unknown.

Maybe surrender isn’t about giving up control, maybe it’s about trusting that the unfolding of our lives may be wiser than our fear.”

Sending our love to you always,

Dalia and Dina (:

We have a short but powerful episode in store for you today. We dive into a conversation about Repair - what Dalia calls her super power in especially parenting her daughters. Then we naturally move into accountability and the different apology languages. In the spirit of full transparency and honesty, this was probably the hardest episode to record. We had some technical difficulties starting out and that’s why Dalia’s video looks a little different than usual. By the time we started recording it was already 10pm for Dina…also Derek is out of town this week and so we had to edit out some moments where Dalia’s sweet girls would come in when they needed help with something because there were no other adults around…So with all of that being said we are actually proud of this episode, and so grateful Dina prepared and planned this one for us. She had some great questions to ask Dalia and we hope you find this tool empowering and transformative as you utilize it in your relationships.

All throughout the episode we reference this apology languages quiz (https://5lovelanguages.com/quizzes/apology-language) that Dalia first learned about a couple of years ago when she heard it in this wonderful Faith Matters podcast episode. (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/faith-matters/id1307757928?i=1000672841882)

Also in the spirit of the Spring officially starting (YAY) - Dalia attended her last Women’s Spring Equinox Day Retreat on Sunday with the gorgeous women of the yoga community that she has gotten to know and love deeply the last 4 years here in Orange County. We wanted to share this beautiful poem that was read during Savasana that felt like such a gentle reminder of the energy that is available to us all this time of year…maybe what wants to be born in you is: to repair with the people you love most? <3

What Wants to be Born In You Beloved?

I have become grateful for the moments when I remember to stop

In order to listen to what the earth has to tell me.

This morning it was a flower who took me by surprise and shared her secrets with me.

She told me of her journey.

How it began in darkness, in the quiet, cool embrace of the quiet, generous earth.

She told me how the light called to her, and how, slowly but solidly,

She began to unfold towards the simple inevitability of her calling.

She told me of the exquisite cracking-open of all she knew herself to be;

The opening that felt like death until she realized it was her birth.

And then, with her open petals,

She asked me in the way

Only a full-bloomed flower can ask,

‘What wants to be born in you, beloved?’

What does the light want to call into being

From the quiet, generous earth

That waits patiently

In the cave of your heart?

-Hollie Holden

Today is a very happy Thursday because it’s Dina’s birthday!!! Dina is such a magnetic, determined and gorgeous woman and I feel sooo grateful to be her older sister, best friend and co-host. (; We are delighted to share this episode with you! This is a really special conversation full of wisdom that has been transformative for us. We are sharing knowledge that has been so impactful on our healing journey and in Dalia’s parenting journey. We will be sharing about co-regulation, touching on willpower and how it helps us to choose love anyway, and the end of the episode is dedicated to Dina and her birthday! <3 This turned out to be a longer episode so we hope you will stick around!

Co-regulation: “Is the process through which a calm adult helps a child’s nervous system return to balance during moments of big emotion. Young children’s brains are still developing. Especially the prefrontal cortex, the part responsible for impulse control, reasoning, and emotional regulation. When a child becomes overwhelmed, that thinking part of the brain temporarily goes offline and their nervous system shifts into a survival state. In those moments, children cannot access logic or lessons. What they need first is a calm, regulated adult presence. Through tone of voice, body language, and connection, the adult’s nervous system helps signal safety to the child’s nervous system. Once the child feels safe and their body settles, the brain can come back online and learning can happen. Over time, children internalize this process. What begins as co-regulation with a caregiver gradually becomes the foundation for self-regulation.”

Some resources that we mentioned in the episode that have helped us:

Good Inside with Dr. Becky (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/good-inside-with-dr-becky/id1561689671)

Big Little Feelings (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/after-bedtime-with-big-little-feelings/id1705286339)

To Be Magnetic (TBM) (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/expanded-podcast-by-to-be-magnetic/id1419732648)

There are sooo many more out there, these are just ones that we have personally used!

Sending love to you all,

Dalia and Dina <3

#chooseloveanyway #coregulation #birthday #willpower #growthjourney

We are so happy to share this episode with you today! We felt called to dedicate this one to all the incredible women in our life. We wish we could of named and talked about each of you in detail…but you know who you are and this one is for you…<3

Growing up in a Russian family, March 8th was always one of the most special holidays in our home. It was a day when women were celebrated with flowers, gratitude, and love. As we’ve grown older, we’ve learned that the history behind International Women’s Day is actually rooted in women standing up for their rights, their dignity, and their voices. Today we wanted to reflect not only on the history of this day, but on the women who have shaped us, challenged us, and taught us what it means to choose love anyway.

#chooseloveanyway #internationalwomensday #empowerment #friendships #selftrust