This episode closes out Lesbian Visibility Week 2026.

Visibility isn’t just about being seen. It’s about being able to stand in who you are as a lesbian woman without shrinking, adapting, or dissolving yourself to fit a world that still pushes back.

What you’ll hear in this episode are REAL and bite sized moments from women I’ve worked with. Women who spent years understanding themselves, but still found they were stuck in patterns that kept them small, unsure, and disconnected when it actually mattered in their lives and relationships.

For many, those patterns started early. Learning to stay safe, keep the peace, not stand out. Learning to cope with unresolved trauma, emotional neglect, internalised shame or abuse. Over time, that becomes people-pleasing, over-explaining, second-guessing, and losing yourself in relationships.

They all knew what was repeating in their lives that was causing them pain.

They just didn’t know how to change it.

What you’re hearing here is what it sounds like when that begins to change.

And it’s important to recognise what sits behind this.

These are lesbian and queer women who chose to step into something that asked them to face and work through to change what they’d spent years avoiding. Brave women who stayed with it. And who have then chosen to speak openly about it to help other women believe that it is possible for them too.

That level of visibility takes courage.

Especially in a world where visibility has often been something people learn to hold back.

And this isn’t just about them - It's part of something so much bigger....

When women speak like this, it does something powerful. It shows other lesbian and queer women that their presence matters. That they don’t have to keep hanging back, hiding, or telling themselves they’re not ready or not worth the effort of change that leads to happiness and peace.

It gives you something real to see.

Not an idea. Not advice.

Proof.

That it’s possible to live differently, to take up space, and to stop losing yourself in the process.

You don’t need to start from the beginning you can dip in anywhere.

Listen to how they each talk about themselves now and understand what's possible for you too.

Work with me

If you recognise yourself in this and want to explore working with me inside Braver Women, the link is below.

The Braver Women® Consultation Link Click Here

Join Us Inside the Braver Women Community

Braver Women Facebook Group

I don’t usually work with men.

But every now and then, someone comes to me at a point where nothing else has worked, and Baz was one of those people.

When he reached out, he described it as his last chance saloon.

Baz is 45, a paediatric nurse from Scotland, and identifies as gay and intersex.

When we started working together, he had already spent years in therapy, read the books, tried to understand himself, and still felt completely stuck, exhausted, and out of options.

What he shares in this conversation is not surface-level.

It’s a very real account of growing up in abuse, shame, and silence…
living with addiction, disordered eating, and self-hatred…
and what it’s like to carry that for decades while trying to function on the outside.

We also talk about why years of therapy didn’t change how he felt or how he lived, and what shifted when he stopped just talking about his life and started doing the kind of work that actually asks something of you.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

– What complex developmental trauma can look like across a lifetime
– The patterns we develop when we grow up feeling unsafe, different or unwanted
– Why understanding your past doesn’t always change how you live
– What kept Baz stuck for years, despite trying everything
– And what began to shift when he finally found a way to change how he responded, not just how he understood

This is not a polished success story.

It’s a raw, honest conversation about what it actually takes to change your life when you’ve spent years believing nothing will work for you.

https://braverwomen.com/Resources, videos, support and other materials for LGBTQ+ women that won't find available anywhere else - The Braver Women Facebook Community

Mother’s Day is often presented as a day of warmth, gratitude and celebration.

But for many women, the reality of that relationship is far more complicated.

In this episode, Leanne speaks openly about the emotional impact of growing up with a difficult relationship with her own mother, and the quiet grief many women carry when their experience doesn’t match the cultural script of what a mother - child relationship is supposed to look like.

From the pressure of social media tributes to the silence surrounding difficult family dynamics, this conversation explores the hidden side of Mother’s Day that rarely gets acknowledged.

Leanne also shares parts of her own journey navigating a strained relationship with her mother, and the turning point that allowed her to move from trying to prove her worth to understanding her mother’s limitations without letting them define her value.

This episode is not about blame or bitterness.

It’s about honesty, emotional maturity, and recognising that love and pain can exist in the same relationship.

If Mother’s Day feels complicated for you, this conversation may help you organise some of your thoughts and realise that you are not alone.

In this episode we explore:

• Why Mother’s Day can trigger deep emotional responses
• The cultural fantasy of motherhood versus lived experience
• How early relationships shape self-worth and emotional regulation
• The guilt many women feel when acknowledging harm in family relationships
• Why two truths can exist at the same time - love and impact
• Moving from longing for a different mother to building emotional stability within yourself

This episode is for the women who find themselves in the grey area of Mother’s Day - where the relationship with their mother isn’t simple, but their experience still deserves to be acknowledged.

https://braverwomen.com/

www.braverwomen.com

In this episode, you’ll hear a real Braver Women transformation story.

You're going to listen to Sally, 64, a retired teacher who for most of her life on the the outside she appeared as steady, capable and confident. For decades she managed her life well enough that no one would have questioned her resilience. She grew up in a home shaped by strong religious beliefs and high expectations, where she learned early that love and approval had to be earned. Emotional regulation was never modelled, so uncomfortable feelings became something to avoid rather than move through - all the way through her adult life. As a young adult, Sally left the UK and moved to Berlin. There she discovered the gay scene and experienced, for the first time, a sense of belonging that had been missing growing up. Alongside that freedom came escapism - alcohol, drugs and intensity became ways of managing emotions she didn’t yet know how to tolerate. Over the five decades that followed, she continued to function well. She built a life and like so many women in the lesbian and queer community, she coped - in her head. But in her body the relationship she had with her nervous system's ability to experience uncomfortable emotions made her spiral and collapse internally, when they became too much to handle. The avoidance coping strategies that had once helped her survive were the very thing maintaining anxiety, emotional reactivity and a deep fear of inadequacy - for years.

After a personal crisis at 64, she realised those strategies were no longer working and she needed help to change these.

In this conversation, you’ll hear:

• What masking confidence looked like in real terms for Sally
• How avoidance and escapism were linked to shame and emotional avoidance
• Why belonging externally didn’t resolve her internal insecurity
• What changed when she stopped abandoning herself
• How structured, daily therapeutic work created emotional stability in her body that she could actually feel
• What life feels like now compared to before

This episode explores identity, shame, distress intolerance and the long-term impact of conditional approval.

If you recognise yourself in the experience of appearing strong while struggling internally, this conversation will resonate.

Bravery isn’t a heroic performance. It’s the decision to stay with yourself even when it’s uncomfortable.

Sally’s story shows what becomes possible when that work is done consistently and properly.

You can reach Leanne at www.braverwomen.com or by email at: [email protected]

This episode is a little different.

After experiencing a sudden health scare, Leanne shares the clarity that comes when life interrupts autopilot. Not from fear - but from the realisation that many of us are quietly living in a waiting room. Waiting to feel ready, waiting to feel certain, waiting for permission before we move. Living inside your head instead of

Through a familiar story we can all recognise, Leanne explores why insight alone doesn’t create change, how familiar discomfort can become normalised, and why so many capable women stay stuck even when they know exactly what needs to shift.

This is not about motivation. This is a clear eyed episode about what needs to happen if you're lesbian or queer woman who is circling around things in your life that are making you truly miserable. Leanne will tell you what conditions create happiness in a single sentence.
It’s about recognising avoidance, facing uncertainty differently, and choosing movement in your life, instead of floating about and overthinking.

In This Episode

• Why thinking, analysing and understanding can start to feel like progress - even when nothing changes
• The hidden pattern behind procrastination, overthinking and “waiting to feel ready”
• What a recent health scare revealed about the illusion of control
• What intolerance for uncertainty keeps you in
• The difference between insight and movement - and why presence changes relationships
• Why happiness isn’t something you chase, but something else entirely
• The moment many women reach breaking point - and how to move before you get there

www.braverwomen.com

In this shorter, more personal episode today, Leanne shares a conversation originally recorded inside the Braver Women® Community following Valentine’s Day - a time that can stir up powerful emotions around loneliness, romantic love, and self-worth, especially for LGBTQ+ women who have not always felt fully seen or understood.

This episode explores the deeper reality behind fear of judgement and fear of disconnection, and why romantic love often brings our emotional patterns to the surface. Rather than offering surface level reassurance, Leanne speaks honestly about the difference between romantic love and the many other forms of connection that shape our lives - and how confusing the two can quietly fuel the inner critic.

Inside this conversation, you’ll hear reflections on:

• Why romantic love can feel intense - and what it often reveals beneath the surface
• How loneliness can activate older emotional imprints linked to belonging and safety
• The difference between longing for romantic love and believing you are without love entirely
• How self-worth grows through the relationship you have with yourself, not just through being chosen

If this episode resonates, the Braver Women® community is where these deeper conversations continue. It’s a space for lesbian and queer women who are ready to move beyond insight alone and begin changing the emotional patterns that shape how they live and relate.

Join the Braver Women® community here: Click Here

This is a remarkable community that contains the deeper conversations, insights and material to support you that isn't shared anywhere else. It's completely complimentary to join us.

Connect with Leanne:

YouTube: Here
Instagram: Here
LinkedIn: Here

Facebook: Here

Fear of judgement is often framed as a confidence issue or an overthinking problem.

For many lesbian and queer women, it’s neither.

In this episode, Leanne goes beneath surface explanations to look at what fear of judgement is really organised around, why it shows up in the body before the mind, and why “just be yourself” advice misses the point entirely.

This episode is for women who know their fear isn’t irrational, but haven’t yet had the language to understand it.

If you’ve ever felt yourself scanning rooms, editing your truth, managing reactions, or carrying responsibility for how others feel, this episode will put words to something you’ve been living inside.

This is a clear-eyed look at why your system learned what it did - and what actually begins to loosen fear of judgement at its root.In this episode, we explore

• Why fear of judgement isn’t about confidence, mindset, or approval

• How fear of judgement is really about relational consequence and belonging

• Why lesbian and queer women are disproportionately affected

• How subtle discrimination, micro-aggressions, and social surveillance shape nervous-system responses

• The role of attachment and implicit memory in fear-based coping

• Why fear shows up as a state change in the body, not just a thought

• Emotional over-responsibility and how it becomes a survival strategy

• The four common adaptations many queer women develop:

  • The Room Reader

  • The Overtime Earner

  • The Self-Silencer

  • The Human Shield

• What individuation actually means and why it’s missing for so many women

• Why some relationships change when you stop managing other people’s emotions

• How fear of judgement loosens when you stop organising your life around it

  
  

  Come and join us inside the Braver Women Community - HERE

  Contact Leanne - HERE

In this episode of The Braver Women Show, I’m joined by client, George, a queer woman based in the UK, for a real and honest conversation about trauma, recovery, and what it means to find your voice again after years of holding it back.

This is not a polished interview. It is a relaxed, human conversation about what changes when a woman stops performing and starts relating to herself differently.

George shares her Braver Women therapy journey , including how childhood trauma shaped her sense of self, how internalised beliefs quietly ran her life for years, and what began to shift when she learned how to stay connected to herself rather than escape from what she was feeling.

We talk about disconnection, addiction, losing yourself in other people, and the long term impact of living through survival patterns. George also reflects on why previous therapy did not help at the time, and what made this work different once she was ready to lean in.

At its core, this particular episode is about voice. About moving from getting through life to actually being present in it. And about reconnecting to a sense of agency and self worth after trauma.

Content note:
This episode includes brief references to addiction, self harm, and suicide, discussed within the context of recovery and healing. Listener discretion is advised.

What we touch on in this episode

• How trauma can silence your voice long before you realise it
• Why many queer women learn to stay quiet, edit themselves, or minimise
• The difference between performing in therapy and embodying change
• Addiction and disconnection as survival strategies rather than character flaws
• What it means to relate to yourself differently after trauma
• Choosing your life direction without denying what happened to you
• Reclaiming self worth after years of internalised beliefs

If you want to connect with me, Leanne, therapist and the founder of Braver Women and other queer women who are on their healing journey, then join the Braver Women Community today - I give you access to a generous amount of materials, insights, member only videos and discussions that aren't shared anywhere else. Many members have found it life changing and the best thing about it, it's always free. Every question is always answered with the same care and support that I show my clients:

The Braver Women Community

If you prefer to watch this episode then head on over to YouTube and you can see there - Click here

If you would like to have a chat of have a suggestion for a podcast episode that you'd like me to cover then go ahead and send me a message at: [email protected]

Until next time, remember -Bravery isn't a leap. It's built through small deliberate steps. And when you're ready to take yours, you know where to find me.

Leanne.

Content Note Prior to Listening:
This episode includes discussion and references to childhood sexual abuse and suicidal thoughts. Please listen with care and pause whenever you need.

In this deeply personal episode of The Braver Women® Show, Leanne shares a conversation that reveals the quiet power of a specialised therapeutic relationship designed to reach places ordinary approaches often can’t.

Ally, a remarkable woman from the north of England, speaks openly about the childhood sexual abuse she endured and the decades of shame, anxiety, and 'otherness' that followed.
After years of searching for something that could truly touch the depth of her pain, Ally found in her work with Leanne the level of safety and structure needed for profound healing.
Within that carefully held space she discovered the courage to face experiences she once believed would define her forever.

Ally now calls this experience “the best thing I’ve ever done in my life,” and offers her story as a gift to any woman who needs to know that the shame they carry was never theirs to begin with.

This episode explores:
• How childhood trauma silently shapes identity and self worth
• Why shame feels permanent - but isn’t
• How healing becomes possible when safety, responsibility, and a deeply committed therapeutic relationship come together

It’s an unpolished, profoundly human conversation about trauma, resilience, and the life changing impact of a therapeutic relationship unlike anything Ally had experienced before.

If this episode helps you, please share it with someone who might need hope today and leave a review to help more lesbian and queer women find these powerful conversations.

[email protected]

Connect with Braver Women

Connect with Leanne C. Jones

Braver Women YouTube

Leanne C. Jones LinkedIn

What does it really take to come out later in life, when you're married, a mother, and terrified of breaking everything you've built?

In this powerful episode of The Braver Women Show, Nichole shares her raw, honest journey of coming out at 50 after decades of hiding her truth.

From growing up in a conservative religious environment in Utah, to the fear of disappointing her family, to the moment she finally had the conversation with her mother she'd avoided for years, this is the story of what it means to let go of the life you were told to live and choose authenticity instead.

Nichole worked with me for 3 months in the Braver Women therapy programme, where she dismantled the fear, shame, and silence that had kept her stuck for decades. She didn’t just come out. She finally came home to herself.

If you’re tired of hiding, afraid of what coming out might cost you, or unsure if it’s too late to choose yourself, this episode is for you.

Ready to start your own journey?

https://braverwomen.com/
Join the Braver Women Facebook community and take your first step toward living with passion, purpose and pride: Click Here

Connect with me on LinkedIn - YouTube - Instagram - Facebook

Dip your toe in and get the Braver Women Journal for LGBTQ+ Women - The 6 Step Daily Method to Transform Your Confidence - Available on Amazon Worldwide