Marci Warhaft: The Good Stripper - A Soccer Mom's Memoir of Lies, Loss and Lap Dances

Episode Summary

Welcome to the Erica Diamond Podcast. Today we have a special guest, one could say, is the definition of trauma and triumph. Strength and resilience. Loss and healing. 

Marci Warhaft is a recognized expert on body image and self-esteem, and founder of The Fit vs Fiction body image workshops. She is a regular contributor to Optimyz Fitness magazine. One of Canada’s Top 100 influencers for 2018, 2019 and 2020, she has appeared on numerous television and radio programs across North America. Marci is the author of the newly released, “The Good Stripper: A Soccer Mom’s Memoir of Lies, Loss and Lap Dances” and “The Body Image Survival Guide for Parents”.

Let me start by saying, both of us Montrealers, I know Marci as the author of a blog post on WomenOnTheFence.com seven years ago on body image and her struggles with her eating disorder. She inspired our audience with her healing and self-acceptance. 

But I did not know her full story arc. Nor did most.

It wasn’t the life Marci Warhaft envisioned for herself. A good student who had been accepted into a prestigious theatre school, a doting mother with two young sons, and there she was taking it all off in front of paying customers to "Bootylicious" by Destiny’s Child. The Good Stripper is an eye-popping journey: Warhaft reveals the punishing circumstances and self-destructive behaviors that shaped her early adulthood, including a bank-robbing stepfather, the loss of her beloved brother, eating disorders, and sexual misadventures with a manipulative husband.

She describes, in honest, raw, and intimate detail, her struggles to recognize what was happening to her, and her sometimes misguided fight to regain control of her destiny. Above all, it is the story of how one woman, after years of living a double life, packing school lunches by day and giving lapdances by night, finally became the inspirational leader she was.

In This Episode 

• Tell me why you wanted to tell this story. Why now?
• You describe your marriage as almost dysfunctional in the book. What role did your husband play in both your struggles, and your growth and evolution? 
• What was the mental shift in your mind that had to take place for you to take to a stage with strangers watching, and take your clothes off. What was going on in your mind that made you feel that stripping would fill a void or a need?
• When you were Cassidy, how did that make you feel? 
• Did you not feel like you could live out Cassidy in a safer expression? What need was being fulfilled by you choosing Cassidy?
• In your book, you talk about evenings in the gym working out, away from your kids in order to keep your body fit for work, all the while fueling your eating disorder. What was that time like for you? 
• Were you able to compartmentalize your roles, meaning Cassidy had her place in your life, and then when you got home, soccer mom and wife was in the house. How did you manage those dual roles? I Can’t imagine that was easy. 
• What was your aha moment that made you stop dancing?
• Are there teachable moments here for your readers? If so, what are they?
• For anyone who may be struggling with forgiving themselves for the mistakes they made when they were just doing their best to survive, what would you say to them?
• Talk to me about the role of forgiveness as part of your recovery
• At what point did you feel the shift from survivor to thriver
• What would you say to your younger self today, after all your life lessons learned and so much wisdom.
• What have you learned in your journey. What has been life’s greatest lesson to you? IF TIME 

About Marci Warhaft

Marci Warhaft is a recognized expert on body image and self-esteem, and founder of The Fit vs Fiction body image workshops. She is a regular contributor to Optimyz Fitness magazine. One of Canada’s Top 100 influencers for 2018, 2019 and 2020, she has appeared on numerous television and radio programs across North America. Marci is the author of, “The Good Stripper: A Soccer Mom’s Memoir of Lies, Loss and Lap Dances” and “The Body Image Survival Guide for Parents”.

Links

The Good Stripper: A Soccer Mom’s Memoir of Lies, Loss and Lap Dances

The Body Image Survival Guide for Parents

Fit vs. Fiction

Learn More about Your Host

Teaching Empowered Living, Erica Diamond is a leading Women's Expert in Lifestyle, Wellness and Empowerment. A Certified Life Coach and Certified Yoga Instructor, Erica is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of the Award-Winning Women’s Lifestyle Platform EricaDiamond.com® (previously WomenOnTheFence.com®), Weekly Lifestyle and Parenting Correspondent on Global TV, Award-Winning Entrepreneur, Keynote Speaker, Spokesperson, and Author of the women’s entrepreneurial book, 99 Things Women Wish They Knew Before Starting Their Own Business. Erica founded the Global Get Off The Fence Movement inspiring people worldwide to get off the fence, get unstuck and thrive, and launched The Erica Diamond Podcast in summer 2019 to spotlight trailblazers and change makers around the world. 

Erica Diamond has been named to the coveted list of The Top 20 Women in Canada as well as FORBES Magazine’s Top 100 Sites for Women and FORBES 25 Most Influential Women In Entrepreneurship on Twitter. Erica Diamond was the Spokesperson for National Entrepreneurship Day and is a Huffington Post contributor. 

To learn more about Erica Diamond, visit her website EricaDiamond.com

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