She Talks
She Talks
MAGAZINE
APRIL 2026
VOL 3 | ISSUE 4
BEAUTY &
BRAINS
BEAUTY &
BRAINS
FEATURE:
FEATURE:
WHY WOMEN SHOULD NEVER
HAVE TO CHOOSE
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CONTRIBUTORS
Editor-in-Chief
DR. JULIE DUCHARME
Cover Layout and
Magazine Design
DR. JOSHUA DUCHARME
Contributing Writers
VIRGINIA SHORT
GABRIELLA POMARE
AMANDA TAYLOR
DR. JULIE DUCHARME
LISA E KIRKWOOD
CORY FISK
KAREN GRAY
Table of
Contents
Leaving Safe for Aligned
Starting Over: Rebuilding Yourself After Divorce,
Betrayal, and Burnout
The Bravest Thing She Ever Did
Blossming Trees, Decorated Eggs, and
Chocalate Bunnies
By Amnda Taylor
By Virginia Short
By Karen Gray
By Lisa E Kirkwood
14
19
30
Beauty and Brains: Why Women Should
Never Have to Choose
By Dr. Julie Ducharme
FEATURE
22
By Gabriella Pomare
The Quiet Courage of Starting Over
41
Construction Management Isn’t for Everyone
By Cory Fisk
35
FROM THE EDITOR
Founder, Lead and Empower Her She Talks
Wow, what a powerful month March was! We hosted an incredibly
empowering event in San Diego and the feedback has been nothing short
of inspiring. Watching three of your Youth Ambassadors absolutely rock
the stage was a highlight of the day. They were truly the stars of the event,
and it filled our hearts with hope and excitement to see these remarkable
young women step confidently into their voices and their futures.
As we step into April, spring is in the air. For those of you with kids, the
school year is beginning to wind down. Can I get an amen for that? This
season always feels like a breath of fresh air. It’s a time of renewal, growth,
and stepping into the light after the quieter months of winter.
Spring invites us to bloom in every sense of the word in our clothing, our
bodies, our minds, and our souls.
This month, we’re embracing empowerment through self-expression and
self-care. It’s the perfect time to refresh your wardrobe with pieces that
make you feel confident and radiant, to move your body in ways that bring
you joy, to nourish your mind with inspiration and learning, and to
reconnect with the deeper parts of your soul that remind you who you
truly are.
Let this be the season you invest in yourself without apology. The season
you try something new, say yes to opportunities, and show up fully as the
woman you are becoming.
Here’s to growth, confidence, and blooming boldly this spring
With gratitude and belief in every one of you,
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SCALE UP
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Leaving Safe
Leaving Safe
for Aligned:
for Aligned:
Leaving Safe
for Aligned:
THE REINVENTION NOBODY
WARNS YOU ABOUT
Here is the thing about “safe.” It does not knock on
your door and introduce itself as a cage. It builds
slowly. One predictable routine at a time. One
rational compromise. One steady paycheck. Until
one day you realize you have been holding your
breath for years.
What most people do not know is that dental
practice management was never a calling. It was
an accident. I fell into it because it was a job that
made sense. I was capable, dependable, and good
at solving problems, so I built a career there.
But being good at something is not the same as
being aligned with it.
Real estate investing was also an accident.
I did not set out to become an entrepreneur. I
stumbled into an opportunity, said yes before I
fully understood what I was doing, and something
inside me ignited. For the first time, I felt a drive
and a purpose I did not know I had. It was not just
about property or money. It was about ownership.
About possibility. About realizing I could build
something that belonged to me.
That shift changed everything.
BY AMANDA TAYLOR
I used to have the kind of career that made
people nod approvingly at dinner parties. I
managed dental practices. I had a steady
salary, benefits, a respectable title, and a 401(k)
that made my mother proud.
On paper, I was winning.
Inside, I was suffocating.
SHE TALKS | 9
When your identity begins to evolve, your life cannot stay the same. Real estate did not single-
handedly end my 22-year marriage, but it forced me to confront the misalignment I had been living
with for years. It showed me that safety and fulfillment are not the same thing. It showed me that
staying comfortable can sometimes mean staying small.
Later, I did not intend to start a business development company either. That was another accident. I
was simply helping other entrepreneurs solve problems I had already learned how to solve. One
client led to another. One solution became a system. And eventually, I realized I had built something
far bigger than I planned.
That was when everything came full circle
I was not just competent at this work. I was
aligned with it. Helping entrepreneurs build
profitable businesses and guiding women toward
ownership and wealth was not a career decision.
It was an evolution.
Each phase of my life revealed a different
version of me. The operator. The risk-taker. The
builder. The strategist. The leader. None of those
versions replaced the others. They stacked. They
prepared me for the next expansion.
And I am still evolving.
Do not let my bravery fool you. Every phase of
growth comes with resistance. There is always a
part of me that wants to retreat back to
certainty, back to safety, back to what is familiar.
Reinvention is not a single act of courage. It is a
lifelong negotiation between who you were and
who you are becoming.
SHE TALKS | 10
What nobody tells you about reinvention is that
the hardest part is not the leap. The hardest part
is sitting with the discomfort of disappointing
people who were comfortable with the old
version of you. The manageable version. The
predictable version. The version who did not
make Thanksgiving uncomfortable by talking
about equity, ownership, or building wealth
outside of a traditional retirement plan.
Reinvention is not a one-time event. It is a
pattern.
First comes the restlessness.
Then the guilt.
Then the leap.
Then the messy landing.
The landing is never graceful. But it is always
worth it.
Today, I help women entrepreneurs stop trading
time for money and start building real wealth.
Not performative wealth. Not status symbols.
Ownership. Equity. Assets that generate income
whether they are working or not. Businesses
designed for profit, not just revenue.
I went from managing dental offices to building
real estate portfolios to co-founding Metropolis
Business Development and hosting the Expand
Your Empire podcast because I refused to let
“safe” become the ceiling on my potential.
And if you are reading this with that quiet
whisper in your ear, the one that says, “This is
not it,” hear me clearly.
That voice is not reckless.
She is not ungrateful.
She is aligned.
Reinvention does not require you to burn your
life down. It requires honesty. Which parts of
your life were built for a woman you no longer
are? Some structures can stay. Some need to
evolve. Some must come down so something
larger can rise.
I look back at the woman I was ten years ago,
sitting in that dental office managing someone
else’s schedule and someone else’s revenue. She
was not stuck. She was preparing. Every system
she built, every challenge she handled, every
skill she sharpened was training for the empire
she did not yet have the courage to claim.
If you are standing at the edge of your own
reinvention, let me save you some time.
You do not need permission.
You do not need a perfect plan.
You do not need everyone to understand.
You only need to trust that the woman on the
other side of “safe” is worth becoming.
I know she is.
I have met her.
And she is just getting started.
Connect with
Amanda
@EXPANDYOUREMPIRE.ORG
SHE TALKS | 11
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STARTING OVER:
REBUILDING YOURSELF
AFTER DIVORCE,
BETRAYAL, AND
BURNOUT
BY VIRGINIA SHORT
The hardest part of starting over is not rebuilding
your life.
It is realizing the life you thought you had was
never what you believed it to be.
After my divorce, I was not just grieving the end of
a marriage. I was grieving the version of myself
who believed in it. The woman who trusted the
promises, ignored the quiet voice in her gut, and
kept hoping that love
would return to what it was in the beginning.
In the early days, I was deeply in love. I felt safe,
cared for, and hopeful about the future we were
building together.
But underneath that happiness, there was always
a feeling I could not quite explain.
Something was not right.
At first it was subtle. Just a quiet discomfort I
could not name. I ignored it because everything
else looked good on the surface. I told myself
relationships were complicated. I told myself love
required patience.
SHE TALKS | 13
What I did not realize at the time was that I was
slowly entering a cycle of intermittent love. There
were moments of affection, care, and closeness
followed by confusion, distance, or criticism. It
was the kind of love that felt amazing when it was
present, but unpredictable enough to keep me
constantly questioning myself.
There were rules I did not realize I was living under.
If I did not work out, there would be a comment.
If I did not check in enough, he might be with a
“friend.”
If I did not ask the right questions, I simply would
not know what was happening.
And if I asked the most direct question of all, “Are
you cheating?” I was told I was crazy.
Then the smear campaigns would begin.
The betrayal was not only physical.
It was mental and emotional.
Living With Cognitive Dissonance
One of the hardest parts of leaving that
relationship was understanding what had
happened to my mind.
I had been living in cognitive dissonance.
Cognitive dissonance occurs when two realities
exist at the same time and your brain struggles to
reconcile them. It is the psychological tension
between what someone says and what they
actually do.
For example, someone says they love you but
repeatedly lies.
They promise loyalty yet evidence suggests
otherwise.
They accuse you of being paranoid when you
question their behavior.
Your mind starts trying to make sense of the
contradiction. Instead of questioning them, you
begin questioning yourself.
Maybe I am overreacting.
Maybe I misunderstood.
Maybe I am the problem.
SHE TALKS | 14
Over time, that tension slowly erodes your sense of
self.
You begin trusting their narrative more than your
own intuition.
That is what gaslighting, manipulation, and
emotional erosion can do.
He said he loved me, yet his actions slowly chipped
away at my identity.
Grieving More Than a Marriage
When the relationship ended, I was not only grieving
the loss of a partner.
I was grieving the loss of the person I thought I was.
I had to face questions that felt unbearable.
Who am I without this relationship?
How did I stay so long?
Was I not enough?
The shame was heavy.
Starting over was not only emotional. It was
practical and overwhelming.
I had to get three jobs while finishing graduate
school and completing an internship. Burnout could
not even begin to describe those days.
Survival mode became my normal state. Every hour
felt like a negotiation between exhaustion and
necessity.
I was trying my best.
But what is “best” when you feel like you have
nothing left?
Trusting anyone felt impossible. My guard was
permanently up. Self-care felt like a luxury I could
not afford emotionally or financially.
For a long time, I just kept moving forward without
really living.
Until I hit my rock bottom.
And something in me finally said stop.
It was only when I truly looked at where I was that I
found the courage to look up and begin climbing
again.
What Helped Me Start Healing
Healing did not happen all at once. It came
through small shifts that slowly rebuilt my
relationship with myself.
Rewriting My Inner Dialogue
The first shift was changing how I spoke to myself.
Instead of saying “I have to survive,” I began telling
myself “I get to rebuild.”
Instead of saying “You are not enough,” I practiced
saying “You have always been enough.”
Instead of pushing away pain, I allowed myself to
say “I can pause. I can feel. And that is okay.”
Our inner voice becomes the foundation of our
healing. Once my internal conversation began to
change, my external life slowly followed.
Taking Care of My Body Again
For a long time I had been living in a protective
shell.
Eventually that shell became an identity.
So I started with the simplest acts of care.
I nourished my body with real food.
I took walks, even when they were short.
I began moving my body again.
I spent time outside and allowed myself to
breathe.
At first, healing looked like a quiet walk around the
block.
But those walks reminded me that my body was
still mine.
SHE TALKS | 15
Reconnecting With People
Isolation is one of the deepest wounds
after betrayal.
So I slowly started reconnecting.
I joined meetup groups with other
women.
I reached back out to friends and family.
I allowed myself to be seen again.
Community reminded me that I was not
alone.
Returning to Nature
Sometimes I would drive somewhere
quiet and simply sit in nature.
No distractions. No expectations.
Just presence.
Nature reminded me that healing is not linear. It moves
in seasons.
And seasons always change.
Taking Off the Trauma Backpack
For years I carried emotional weight that was never mine
to hold.
Therapy helped me begin unpacking it.
I had to tell myself something I had resisted for a long
time.
It was not all my fault.
Yes, I could see how my people pleasing tendencies kept
me silent longer than they should have. But
accountability does not mean accepting responsibility
for someone else’s betrayal.
Infidelity, manipulation, coercion, and belittling are
never justified.
The painful breadcrumbs of love were no longer an
excuse.
SHE TALKS | 16
When You Do Not Have a Why
People often say healing begins when you
find your why.
But sometimes after betrayal, you do not
have one.
Sometimes the only reason you keep moving
forward is because something inside you
refuses to disappear.
In those moments, you make yourself the
reason.
I became the reason I kept going.
The Most Important Truth I Learned
If you want to begin healing, start with how
you speak to yourself.
Because the most important relationship you
will ever have is the one you build with you.
You are the love of your life.
You will have your own back.
You will become your own cheerleader.
You will learn how to hold yourself through
the hard days.
And when the inner critic returns, pause.
Ask what wound is speaking.
Listen.
Then remind that part of you that you are
here now and it does not have to carry
everything alone anymore.
Starting Over Is Not Failure
Starting over after divorce, loss, betrayal, or
burnout is not the end of your story.
It is the moment you begin writing a new one.
One where your voice matters.
One where your intuition is trusted.
One where love is not something you beg for
but something you build within yourself first.
Healing is not about becoming who you were
before.
It is about becoming someone stronger, wiser, and
more compassionate than you imagined possible.
And if you are standing at the bottom of your
climb right now, looking up at the mountain ahead,
remember this.
You do not have to climb it all today.
Just take the next step.
Your future self is already cheering you on.
Virginia Delgado Family Counseling | Carlsbad, CA 92008
Free downloadable eBooks - Virginia Delgado Family
Counseling Inc
Connect with Virginia
https://www.instagram.com/mytraumatherapistsays/profilecar
d/?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ
SHE TALKS | 17
Your honor has a story.
And it deserves to be told.
Your honor has a story.
And it deserves to be told.
The She Talks Anthology:
Strength Edition is a
collaborative book
featuring women who
have risen through
challenge, resilience, and
unwavering belief in
themselves.
If your story includes
courage, growth, grit, or
transformation—this is
your invitation.
Submissions now open
Add your chapter. Own your strength.
THE
BRAVEST
THING SHE
EVER DID
Many of us have been taught that
a good woman keeps the peace.
She makes herself available and
palatable for everyone around her
to avoid offending or triggering
anyone. She shrinks her dreams to
fit other people's comfort to be
considerate. She endures what
drains her and calls it loyalty. She
bites her tongue, postpones her
needs, and abandons her own
ambitions at the first sign they
might inconvenience someone
else. And she does all of this while
slowly, quietly disappearing from
the life that was supposed to be
hers.
But there comes a moment in
every woman's reinvention when
she must ask herself a hard
question: Am I actually living my
life - or am I only navigating my
choices to accommodate
everyone else's feelings about
who I am or who I should be?
WAS TO CHOOSE HERSELF
BY KAREN GRAY
“Disappointing someone who needs you to
stay small is not a failure. It is a declaration
with a boundary.”
Choosing myself was the most uncomfortable
experience I had faced, because it felt selfish.
It was filled with guilt, shame and then grief
when people walked away because I no longer
put their needs above my own. But that was
when I realized the truth that relationships
worth protecting are the ones built on mutual
respect, love and trust - not on our ability to
perform, please or compromise. The woman I
am on the other side of this decision is
happier, healthier and living a more fulfilled
life: She speaks her truth. She holds her limits.
She owns her gifts and power and she pursues
her purpose. She values her own opinion,
thoughts and intuition and above all else, she
now moves through the world with the quiet,
unshakeable confidence of a woman who has
finally realized she matters. She knows who
she was created to be and is grateful for every
uncomfortable moment it took to become her
- because she was worth it.
And now she can tell you that choosing to be
YOU is the bravest thing that any of us can
do.
For those who relate to this situation, we have
confused approval with love for so long that
we treat them as the same thing. They are not.
Just in case you missed that message…
Approval does not equate to love. Love says: I
want you to flourish, even when your
flourishing changes our relationship. Approval
says: Stay exactly as you are, because that’s
who I need you to be. One sets you free. The
other keeps you performing, shrinking,
adjusting, and endlessly editing yourself down
to a version that you no longer recognize - just
so everyone around you can remain
comfortable. And the longer you perform, the
further you drift from the woman you were
always meant to be. The Woman you were
created to choose.
Connect with Karen
https://www.linkedin.com/in/coachkarengray-
confidence-and-leadership-coach/
https://www.instagram.com/confidence_coding/
https://www.instagram.com/coachkarengray/