Wed, Feb 12, 2025 2:25PM • 16:33
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Welcome to reclaim your worth with Gene, a podcast where we dive deep into the stories of self love, self value and self respect. Each episode is a journey into the heart of what it means to reclaim your words with real conversations that will inspire you to celebrate the person you see in a mirror. Let’s get started.
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You Hello everyone. This is Jeannie van is pain, and you are here with Miss Delia Marine, I am so excited that Delia is joining us. She’s one of my favorite people in the whole world. She’s a trailblazer. I mean, she’s a C suite executive with over 30 years of experience. She has an amazing business acumen. Right now. She is a Executive Vice President of Tico productions and also a CEO of Islam IO. She has been in many numerous boards, which includes the Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Kansas City and she and TLC Latina Leadership Council. I have known Delia for quite some time, and I have always been amazed in how much she supports other Latinas, and I think it’s so essential for us
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to reclaim your worth, to have this love and respect of other trailblazers. So I’m here today with Delia, and thank you, Delia, for being here today. Thank you, Jean. It’s a pleasure. It’s always wonderful to have an opportunity to spend some time with you and have a great conversation. Exciting? Well, I have a couple questions for you, and I just want us to have just a conversation. You know how passionate I am when it comes to to self worth, because it’s self worth is all about self value. Mm, hmm, self love, self respect, and so many times
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it takes just one person for them to steal for self worth. So I want to ask you is,
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what does self worth means to Delia,
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well, Gene, you know, I self worth just in general, refers to that whole intrinsic value that we assign ourselves right, independent of external validation or achievements and and for me, I it’s it’s a matter of recognizing and appreciating my own strengths, my own qualities and my own inherent dignity. It’s being in that confident Latina that I am, and being happy with where I am in this moment in time. And it’s that, for me, it’s that waking up and remembering and being grateful that I am who I am, and and, and that’s good. I just have to be I know I have to be happy with myself, and I don’t need any anything or anyone else to validate that that’s my own self worth, and that’s what gives me the strength to take the step and to take on whatever comes that day. It’s making sure that I wake up with that strength and that self worth, that is my inner power to take, to take on whatever comes that day. It took me, I think it took me 20 years, 20 plus years, for me to
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to reclaim my worth.
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And it took very little time
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to lose it.
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How did you get to where you are today? I guarantee you that there’s no one on earth that has the ability to maintain that at every moment, we all have our own personal journeys and our own stories that sometimes that journey, we encounter moments like that gene, that it can be a conversation, it can be a word, it can be relationship, it can be a loss. There’s so many different factors that it can in any given moment in time, pull the plug and and just kind of take you, take you back, and you lose that sense of self worth. We’ve all been there. We’ve all done that in one way or another.
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I think we all have had a journey that, for some it takes longer to reclaim their self worth. Um.
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Because we’re all unique and because we have our own individual stories. I think
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for me, it’s it is that constant reminder. I think number one, it’s that the ability to forgive myself, I remind myself, I have the power to pull myself out. And it’s not easy, and it may take time, but, you know, it’s, it’s my power, my ability, and my reminder about those strengths and those qualities and and my own dignity, and slowly being able to pull that back up and strengthen back that back up. You know, it’s a, I think we have to, every day, fight to build that up again, because we have good days and we have bad days. That’s, that’s the reality of life. There’s no fight in it. It’s, you know, you gotta, you’ve gotta face that reality that you know there’s gonna be moments and days where you’re gonna have a challenge and you’re gonna have to, you know, charge yourself up again and build that self worth up again. I think accepting that reality is going to give us the strength to be able to say, Okay, I’ve got this and and I’m going to remind myself again who I am,
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that’s mine, that’s my power, and I can maintain it. I can control it. You
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know, that’s really powerful. What you said about, you know, sometimes just little things, right? That, take it, steal it from you, just like that. I mean, I remember when I was a I was 16 years old, and one of my aunts told me that, hey, if you keep eating, you know, mashed potatoes and those meats the way you’re doing it, you’re gonna get thunder thighs. Yeah, I remember it defined me for the many years to come. So
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tell me about a time when you felt like you lost your self worth. Oh, like I said, we both have our stories, right, and our and our journeys, and mine has been.
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I have a daughter who has a health condition, and I remember speaking to her therapist to get her ready for her session and introduce her, and she started asking me about myself and my story and my background, and all of a sudden, she’s after I didn’t realize how much time had gone by, and she said, Wow. She says, You just told me such an incredible life story that should be a book, that should be a movie. She goes, Oh, my God. And I never really thought about it that way. But,
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you know, there have been different situations. But I think the most profound situation that I had a harder time, a longer time fighting back, was a very difficult divorce I went through and, you know, I have three
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children, adults,
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and two of them were in college at the time, and it was a very situation that he got himself in. And I just remember that I had a very difficult time separating what he had done with who I was. And
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you know when I decided, Okay, that’s it. We got a divorce. I had to fight my way back to my individual self, because sometimes in marriages, we merge and we become one. You know that whole saying you become one, and I I lost myself, and I had to reclaim myself and remind myself that
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where he went and what he did does not define me. That was not me. And I had to, it took some time, but I had to reclaim myself and remind myself that I am a powerful woman and I don’t need him to define my existence. I do not definitely need to
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allow any misgivings that he went through to impact my life, my future and my relationships with my family, with my community, with my children, and it was a very difficult time in my life. But
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I’ll tell you, Gene the most important thing lesson that I’ve learned in life is it’s it’s a class that I took in high school, a psychology class, and it was death and dying, and in that class of death and dying, we learned about the stages of grief. And that class
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stayed with me, and it helped me navigate different moments. And it was in that moment that I reminded myself about the stages of grief and how they can be applicable, not just in death but in life situations. And in this particular situation, we go through those stages of of denial, of anger, of bargaining, of depression, and then finally acceptance. And sometimes.
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In life, we have to go through those stages over and over again, and I think in Reclaiming my self worth, I knew I I found myself going through those stages, but I recognized what was happening, and I was able to get to the point of acceptance that I can’t change the reality of what occurred, but I can set myself on the right path to reclaim, reclaim and build up and strengthen my self worth and remind myself again who I am, me, and that, to me,
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was the most profound moment in my life. And that’s that’s really what helps me in any situation that I might encounter where something tries to still me and pull me back, I’m like, no, no, no, no, that’s not I would say. I mean, definitely, definitely is a cycle of awareness, right? Self awareness, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And it’s it. I know it’s not easy for some people. I you know, that’s
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it’s we all have such individual journeys, and I know that many times when I have conversations with folks, and
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you know, we talk about those stories and the things that have impacted their life and their own self worth, and sometimes it’s just a matter of helping folks understand and and and share it and speak it and use your voice. I think that’s the most powerful thing that I’ve seen, that you’ve been able to accomplish, is that your story helps other women truly recognize their own story and and be able to understand that, how their self worth in life, perhaps, has taken a peding, and they’ve got to reclaim themselves. And we all know that we’ve got a story. We just have to have the strength and the support to be able to share it and to reclaim ourselves and you know, I thank you for what you have done, because that’s truly an inspiration that
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that you know
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we’re not alone. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, definitely, you definitely need a team to,
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you know, to evolve into, I always say you need cheerleaders and protectors.
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So let me last question that I had is, is that what what advice would you give somebody who you know, who helped laughter worth, or are experiencing something in the areas?
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And I would say, practice self compassion. We’ve got to remind ourselves to be kind to ourselves and forgive ourselves, because a lot of times we try to blame ourselves. So again, that’s that cycle, right? And I think we’ve got to be we’ve got to it’s important to practice that self compassion.
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We’ve got to acknowledge our achievements. You know that we’ve we’ve got to
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understand that we we need to recognize our own strengths and our progress.
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It may take one step at a time, but that one step is a success. So I think that’s truly important. We’ve got to set boundaries. Definitely, I would encourage folks set boundaries. You know, know that it’s okay that if you need to remove yourself from a situation or even a person that is not
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helping you move forward or is detrimental to your self care that set those boundaries.
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Truly have to engage in self care, and it’s and it’s up to you to do that. We might have people that that love us and they’re supportive of us, but we have to be our biggest cheerleader. We have to that self care and and give ourselves moments to have joy and have relaxation and just prioritize those things that are important for us.
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Always Surround yourself with positive moments, positive people. Find those things that bring you joy in life,
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embrace your imperfections. Gene, I would encourage folks to no one is perfect, and it’s so important to understand that and to to love yourself for who you are and you are the best of who you are
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by all means. Finally, I just say, you know, there’s nothing wrong with reaching a point where you need to ask for help. You need to find that professional support system, if you need to get counseling, if you need to find a stronger circle your tribe, there is nothing wrong with asking for help. We.
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Have to be we have to know that that is the greatest strength that we have, is knowing when we need to reach out and say, I need you, you know, I would say, you know, give yourself grace and do not outsource your worth. That is critical. So absolutely, it’s just, it’s a journey, right? It’s a marathon. It’s not a sprint, even though it’s definitely not a sprint. So So Delia, thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for being here today. You know, thank you for your wisdom. And I always like to have, you know, because I’m still growing, I’m still healing, and I always enjoy hearing different perspectives, and I always take nuggets away from the discussions that we have so so thank you, and I can’t wait to see you again soon. Thank you. Thank you, Jean. Thank you so much. Love you mucho. I love you. Take it on, mucho. Brazos,
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thank you for joining us or reclaim your work with Jean. If today’s episode resonated with you. Don’t forget to subscribe and share it with someone who needs to hear this message. Remember your worth is never up for negotiation, and it’s for Europe to keep go out there and tell everybody until next time, take care and keep shining. Foreign.