Episode 59

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Published on:

26th Oct 2025

The Goode Fight Begins Within

Twelve years ago, Demetria’s ex-husband brutally beat and stabbed her. Months later, she nearly ended her life — until a small voice and a bigger purpose pulled her back. This conversation is a masterclass in radical responsibility: naming childhood abuse, breaking people-pleasing, apologizing to her kids, and building a nonprofit that turns pain into community power. We map it to the Survival Mode Disrupted framework so you can stop coping cute and start changing your life.

  • Survival as scarcity: living on the least and calling it normal
  • The moment a toddler’s “I love you” interrupted death
  • Accountability vs. revenge: why self-honesty is the turning point
  • People-pleasing, over-giving, and how to reclaim “NO”
  • Apologizing to our children + repairing without shame
  • Building The Goode Fight: healing that feeds the block, not the brand

🎙️ What We Talk About

  • Domestic violence, the stabbing, and the suicide attempt that almost followed
  • Childhood trauma: molestation, bullying, juvenile system (4x)
  • Survival identities: attention-seeking, people-pleasing, overachieving
  • Boundaries as oxygen: saying no, ending blind loyalty, redefining “family”
  • Community over secrecy: why representation in healing matters
  • Leticia’s 3 Phases to Exit Survival Mode applied:
  • Self-Awareness: calling out the behaviors that keep you useful but empty
  • Reprogramming: language, belief, and boundary work that ends self-abandonment
  • Reinvention: living as the healed woman now — systems, circle, standards


🔑 Key Takeaways

“If I’d learned to say NO, I’d have never been in half those rooms.”
“Untouched issues will touch everybody you love.”
“Your trauma explains you. It does not excuse you.”
“Apologize to your kids. Repair is part of love.”


🙌 Why This Episode Matters

High-achieving women are rewarded for over-functioning — until it steals every boundary we have. Demetria shows how to flip the script: take accountability, stop bleeding for people who won’t clot for you, and build a life that honors your peace.


💬 Connect with Demetria

  • The Good Fight (501c3): thegoodefight.org (with the E in “Goode”)
  • Podcast: Unfiltered, Unspoken


🔗 Resources & Links:


Listener Action

Write down one place you’re self-abandoning (money, time, body, boundaries). Replace it with one non-negotiable boundary and one no you will say this week. Tell someone you trust — then follow through.


Episode CTA

You weren’t built to break — and you weren’t built to bleed out to keep the peace. Share this with a woman who needs her power back, and drop a 5-star review so more survivors find this room.

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About the Podcast

Survival Mode Disrupted with Leticia R Francis
Disruptive Unapologetic Conversations about Survival Mode
Survival Mode Disrupted is not just a podcast. It's a rebellion.

A raw, unfiltered space where we finally stop pretending we're fine and start telling the truth—the truth about the trauma we've carried, the identities they had to wear to survive, and the radical decisions we made to break free.

Because here's the deal: survival mode isn’t just a season. It’s a damn identity. One that so many were forced to adopt just to get through life, to stay safe, to stay needed, to stay sane. But eventually, it starts costing you more than it protects. Your peace. Your purpose. Your power.

This podcast is for the disruptors—the people who were told to stay small, stay silent, stay grateful for crumbs… and said “hell no.”

Hosted by Leticia, The Survival Mode Disruptor herself—a trauma recovery mentor, speaker, and woman who has lived through the fires of abuse, betrayal, and breakdown and still chose to rise—this show dives deep into the unapologetic exits from survival mode that no one talks about.

You’ll hear from women (and a few brave men) who walked away from toxic relationships, soul-sucking careers, generational dysfunction, religious trauma, cultural expectations, and the lies they were taught to believe about themselves. Not because it was easy—but because staying would’ve killed something sacred inside of them.

These are the stories of bold pivots, quiet courage, and messy but miraculous rebirths.

Each episode is a conversation—a disruption—meant to wake something up in you. Whether it’s a guest sharing the moment they chose themselves for the first time, or Leticia dropping a truth bomb that makes you question everything you’ve normalized, this podcast is here to shake the foundation of your survival mode identity and replace it with something truer. Something freer.

We’re not here for surface-level self-care tips or fake empowerment slogans.

We’re here to talk about what it really takes to:

Reclaim your voice after being silenced.

Reinvent yourself after being broken down.

Rewrite your story when everyone else wants you to stay the same.

Release the guilt of choosing YOU.

This is for those who are done performing. Done pleasing. Done pretending.

It’s for the ones ready to exit survival mode—not slowly, not quietly, but disruptively and unapologetically.

You won’t leave this podcast the same.
You’ll cry. You’ll rage. You’ll laugh.
You’ll see yourself in every story.
And more importantly, you’ll remember who the hell you are.

Welcome to Survival Mode Disrupted.
It’s not just a podcast.
It’s a movement.
And your exit begins here.

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About your host

Profile picture for Leticia Francis

Leticia Francis

I am not here to inspire you—I am here to activate you.

As a Survivor, Keynote Speaker, and Trauma Recovery Mentor, I know what it’s like to fight battles no one sees. I also know that breaking free is possible. My work is about disrupting survival mode, exposing trauma-driven success cycles, and giving women the blueprint to reclaim their lives.

🔹 200+ podcast features & speaking engagements
🔹 Global Women of Choice Award Winner 2022
🔹 Creator of the Survival Mode Exit Plan
🔹 Host of Survival Mode Disrupted Podcast