166: The Good Listening To Show with Chris Grimes - Episode 166166: The Good Listening To Show with Chris Grimes - Episode 166
UK Health Radio Podcast
Chris Grimes talks with Diana Esther Bershada about her idea of the ‘diamond within’, an inner guiding light shaped by illness, adversity and spiritual awakening. The conversation focuses on midlife purpose, emotional sensitivity, and simple heart-based practices for reconnecting with inner strength.
47:32•25 Apr 2026
Awakening the Diamond Within: Diana Esther Bershada on Inner Guidance and Midlife Purpose
Episode Overview
- Everyone, according to Diana, carries a ‘diamond within’—an inner power and guiding light that becomes buried under ego and conditioning.
- She links her connection to this inner guidance to early experiences of pain, loneliness and a reassuring inner voice during repeated childhood hospital stays.
- Diana describes feelings as “the language of the soul” and argues that modern life trains people to think and plan, but not to feel or trust themselves.
- Her work focuses on emotionally sensitive professional women in midlife, encouraging them to see this stage as a time for renewed purpose rather than decline.
- She offers a simple practice of placing hands on the heart, closing the eyes and visualising golden light as a way to reconnect with inner peace and clarity.
“First of all, I want to say that the diamond within, it's something we all have. And it's not a metaphor.”
How do people find strength in their journey to sobriety and self-healing? This conversation on the Good Listening To Show with host Chris Grimes zooms in on inner resilience through the story of spiritual teacher and author Diana Esther Bershada. Diana shares how her concept of “the diamond within” was shaped by a childhood in the former Soviet Union, repeated hospital stays, and a later diagnosis of lymphatic cancer.
For her, the diamond within is “a true diamond that was inserted into each and every one's soul at the moment of creation,” something real but buried “under many layers of our so-called ego personality.” She explains how a mysterious inner voice first appeared when she was a lonely, frightened child in hospital: “Don't be scared. You're not going to die.
Everything will be fine.” That same inner guidance, she says, carried her through illness, lockdown, and family challenges, and became the basis of her work with emotionally sensitive professional women in midlife. Rather than presenting a religious doctrine, Diana keeps stressing that she isn’t religious and sees this as universal, heart-based wisdom.
She talks about consciousness as “everything you think, you feel, you do on a daily basis,” and argues that many people feel lost because “nobody teaches how to feel. Feelings is the language of the soul.” There’s also a strong focus on purpose in later life. Diana wants midlife women who feel “we are no longer useful” to reconnect with desire, courage and curiosity, and to see life as a “mystery” rather than a slow decline.
She reads from her own poem “The Power of Time” and finishes with a simple heart exercise using breath, touch and visualisation to help people reconnect to a sense of inner light. If you’ve ever wondered whether there might be more inside you than fear, stress and old stories, this gentle, reflective chat may spark some questions worth sitting with.
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