The Unwritten Chapter: Healing and Rebuilding Your Life on Your Terms | Morgan Wijay

Sometimes the hardest transitions are the ones that ask you to question the life you’ve built.

In this episode, Laura sits down with Morgan, a mother, former athlete, and a woman who lived the traditional life society often expects, to talk about what it really looks like to grow within a relationship, try to make things work, and eventually realize when something no longer feels aligned.

Morgan shares her experience of getting married young, becoming a mother, and navigating years of life within a relationship that shaped who she was. We explore what it feels like to slowly lose parts of yourself, to make choices that don’t fully reflect your values, and the moment when you can no longer ignore your own voice.

This conversation is about the internal shift. The courage it takes to choose yourself, even when it means walking away from something familiar.

We also talk about rebuilding. Starting over in your 40s, redefining what love looks like, and being open to something new that feels aligned, supportive, and real.

This episode touches on relationships, self-worth, personal growth, marriage, divorce, and life transitions, while offering a perspective that it is never too late to choose a different path.

If you’ve ever felt like you’ve outgrown a version of your life, this conversation will stay with you.

Wait… what’s next?

Wait... What's Next? 

Host: Laura Alba 
Co-Host: Amanda Brilhante
Executive Producer: Lauren Atkinson

Instagram: @waitwhatsnextpod, @lauraalbaz & @amandakbril

Email:  waitwhatsnextpod@gmail.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hi guys, welcome back to Wait. What's next? The podcast where we talk about transitions, including the ones that ask you to completely rethink the life you thought you were going to have. Today's episode is very vulnerable and very special. We're sitting down with Morgan. Her story is one of those that makes you pause and reflect on what it really means to stay, to try, and eventually to choose yourself. She spent many years in a marriage, building a life, becoming a mom, and doing everything she could do to make it work. And along the way, she found herself navigating situations that didn't always align with who she was at her core. But like so many of us, she kept showing up, hoping things would shift. Her story is very unique, and to be able to respect her vulnerability, we are not going to focus on the story itself, but the feelings, the internal dialogues, and the battles she went through in the midst of transition during her marriage. It's about what it feels like to slowly realize you might be living a version of life that no longer fits with you. And the courage it takes to admit that to yourself. We talk about growing up inside a relationship, raising a family, and what happens when you reach a point where you can ignore your own voice anymore. And this is what you're gonna be left with today. The idea that it is never too late to rebuild your life, to make a hard decision, to walk away from something that once meant everything, and still believe that something better is possible. Because on the other side of that decision, Morgan found a new kind of love. One that feels aligned, present, and fully choosing her in a way she hadn't experienced before. This episode is completely honest, reflective, and really about what it looks like to come back to yourself. So if you've ever questioned your path, your relationships, or felt like you've outgrown a version of your life, this conversation is for you. Let's get into it. You know what? I'll just name it. You get a haircut. I didn't remember you having bangs. Well, you always have bangs.

SPEAKER_03 2:28

I just I've always had bangs. I did cut them. I cut them myself. I'm like, they look great. Like, how are you doing?

SPEAKER_01 2:35

I'm good. Just really busy with work, which I bet you are also very busy. But these are the kind of projects that make my world go around. So I'm super excited for us meeting. Noah has been spreading the rumors. So now the anticipation of the people that knows us are like excited for this episode.

SPEAKER_02 2:54

Oh my god, that's hilarious! Oh goodness. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 2:58

We'll keep it PG then.

SPEAKER_02 2:59

We'll keep it PG.

SPEAKER_01 3:00

I mean, we'll keep it PG. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. We'll get into it. But how are you doing?

SPEAKER_03 3:05

I'm doing good. Honestly, a lot of like life changes are happening right now. So that's been a lot. Um okay. You know, you get to this place, crossroads all the time, and they're very stressful. They challenge you and they're uncomfortable. I think for me, it's always the fear: am I going to make the right choice? Am I making the right choice? How is this going to affect everyone? So it's just constantly that. So yeah, I've just been kind of like laying out everything and trying to figure it out.

SPEAKER_01 3:34

And that's the whole premise of this podcast. So I love that you use the word transition because we're always transitioning. I am in my 30s now, but I can always remember in my 20s there was a transition, and every time it just feels so different. Maybe we can touch a little bit on the transitions that you're currently going through. I talked to you and we got connected through our boyfriends. Yeah. We are part of their basketball network vibe. And it was just so interesting to hear your story. Granted, I think now that I have a podcast and I love having this type of conversations where I'm learning from other people that are in different stages in life, always learning that, as you said, everyone is always on a cross road, is always moving from one place to another, is looking for pivoting where your life is going. That is the dilemma, right? Is this the right move? Is it not? And truly, you won't know until you make the decision and you go for it. So I love your story, and that's why I was so excited to bring you to the podcast because I feel that my audience and the people that I'm building up a community with will have huge takeaways from our conversation today based on the experiences that you had. So take us back and give us your background. You grew up an athlete. You are the first athlete that I had a conversation with on a podcast. We want to understand your personality. I know athletes, you guys think and move different. So give us a take on where it started and that beginning part of that process, and then we jump into everything else.

SPEAKER_03 5:25

Yeah, I think I just grew up in a family of sports. So, like my parents, my mom and dad loved sports, and they would always do like co-ed sports growing up. I'd be like at their softball games or their basketball games, watching them. So, like, I grew up around sports my whole life. My parents were both coaches and teachers. You just kind of do it. And I I grew up in middle America, there's not a lot to do. So it's just like, you know, you just kind of okay, I'm gonna go do sports. And truthfully, I ended up being very successful at sports and it basketball, volleyball, softball, all of those things were thriving for me. And I really love that environment and I love being competitive. The biggest person I'm competitive right now is my GPS. Like when it tells me I'm gonna get to a destination at 12, I'm like, no, I'm gonna beat you. I'm gonna get there at 1155. It's just hard to shut off when you're competitive, and you definitely need to find a place and a balance and a space where you do shut that off.

SPEAKER_01 6:19

But I was a cheerleader and no and I fight all the time because he's like, that was not an athlete, whatever. But I did have the competitive side of me because I did do competition and I was very active and I did play volleyball and all that, but I never did it professionally like all of you guys. But I do have that competitive side of me because when you said the GPS, when I bit the GPS by five minutes, I am this adrenaline rush that I'm just dying. And I'm like, I conquered the morning, my life's good, we're doing great. So I couldn't agree more with that. We're winning, like for sure. We're doing great.

SPEAKER_03 6:52

We went somewhere last night. Michael said, Oh, it's gonna take us 40 minutes. I was like, it's gonna take us 25 minutes. My time it won't. I'm like, you know, and you just feel like you're a waiter, like it's just the smallest thing.

SPEAKER_01 7:04

I do, and I'm like, excuse me, you said at 21. I always have because it's always like 821, and I'm trying to make it to work at 810, 821, 820. I'm like, oh my god, like I just bit this by 10 minutes jokes on your I'm like lit legit, like you're a waste of my time.

SPEAKER_03 7:19

It's so funny because I'm also like the person that talks to Chat GPT a lot, so I'll be like in the morning, like, but it's like so funny because he's like, instead of rushing and trying to beat your GPS, why don't we take deep breaths at you know, stoplights and reset our nervous system? I was like, that's not fun.

SPEAKER_01 7:37

No brain with this podcast because we literally quote Chat GPT at least two to three times every episode. So listen, Chat GPT is our best friend. I think we need to give it a name.

SPEAKER_03 7:47

No, mine has a name, Luna. Okay, Luna. So it's Luna. Cute.

SPEAKER_01 7:52

Okay, that's a good idea. I think we need to give our Chat GPT of this podcast a name and a personality because I always refer to it as my best friend. I go to it before I go to anybody else, and then I go and get second opinions from humans.

SPEAKER_03 8:07

Oh my god, absolutely. No, same. I'm like the same. People are like, AI is ruining the world. I'm like, well, it's making my life better right now.

SPEAKER_01 8:15

I'm probably so I don't know what you're all talking about. But let's get the the time right. So you graduated from high school, moved to Texas.

SPEAKER_03 8:26

My recruiting experience was pretty awesome. Like having a lot of colleges go after me. I know it's not always like that for people. And being a coach now, I see the ups and downs and the woes parents and families go through. My two kids went through drastically two different recruiting processes. So, you know, you just you learn from it. But I went to the University of Houston. Um, they were our top 20 school in the nation for volleyball. And I went there and I learned a lot. And I'll be honest, like I sit here and I look back at my life. It's the transition. It really is. My whole family wanted me to commit to Butler. It's down the street. Everyone's like, you're going to Butler. My dad would take me to Hinklefield House growing up. And it's like the town, it's near us, and it's a great academic place. And I remember I went upstairs and I was like, Yeah, no, I'm going to University of Houston. And my parents were shocked. I came downstairs, like, hey, just you know, like going out with friends. But by the way, I committed to the University of Houston, and I just like walk out the door. My parents were like, so I was excited to go see the world, right? I was I'm a very adventurous. I want to go see things, I want to experience new things. I think the more cultures you put yourself around, the more people you put yourself around, the better human you actually become. You get to like see the way people think and move. And these are all things that just expand your mind. But when I went to college, I don't think I've cried so much in my life. Actually, I cried a lot. There's two times I've cried a lot. Okay. When I went to college, I cried every day, called my mom every day, called her five times a day. And this is before cell phones. So, like you imagine I'm on the payphones putting quarters in. I need to hear my mom's voice. I just couldn't stop crying. I just missed my family. I thought, what am I doing? Houston's hot, it's humid. I'm not vibing with people. I just thought, you know what, I'm gonna transfer. And I really was like, okay, reach out to University of Tennessee and UNC. And they both were like, hey, we have room on our roster, we're down. And I was about to transfer, and then that's actually where I met my husband. Like that night, my roommate took me to the ice cream store to cheer me up. And then my husband came into my life right in that moment, and he was like full of life and joy, and he was like, Oh my gosh. I wasn't really a spiritual person, I was more kind of like sports was my North Star. It was my God, you know, it was my god. I this is what I grew up in. Sundays were on the volleyball court, you know.

SPEAKER_01 10:52

I can relate about homestead so much because moving from another country, it just hits hard. You're kind of crying it out, it's kind of like the pain of growing, right? Starting to feel that independence, that's where you start building it up, you're becoming an adult. You're in Texas, and then the night that you decide you're going to transfer, you meet the person who is going to be your future husband in Texas.

SPEAKER_03 11:20

Yes. Honestly, life unfolds the way it's gonna unfold, right? And I've learned to not strangle that process. You generally you want to control as much as you can control because you're operating in like fear and you want like a great life and this, and if I can control more, and then you just realize like let life unfold.

SPEAKER_01 11:39

How old were you when you met him?

SPEAKER_03 11:41

I was 18 when I met him.

SPEAKER_01 11:42

Yeah, so you were 18, and then you started dating, and then you stay in Texas.

SPEAKER_03 11:49

He ran track at Texas. So once we finished school and college, we got married right away, and then we got pregnant right away. Okay, and then I got pregnant again right away. So, like the transition of becoming a parent is very difficult too. Those are more like exhausting transitions, not as emotional, like they can be emotional. Some people go through, but I think generally when you're so exhausted, that's when your emotions like kind of get the best of you and kind of flood in. Becoming a parent is a lot, you know.

SPEAKER_01 12:18

Especially for a woman. I think we talk to mothers and career-driven women who haven't done it all. That physical toll that your body takes, especially because you had your kids very early on, and that's kind of setting the stage for the rest of your life. That's very interesting because again, going back to the universe, kind of sending you that sign of okay, wait, the universe has a different plan from what you wanted to do, and it wasn't just somebody that you met, it became such a huge part of your life moving forward.

SPEAKER_02 12:52

Oh, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 12:53

You started dating and then you guys moved to California. Yeah. So take us through the relationship. Why did you decide to get married so soon?

SPEAKER_03 13:02

100%. Because like, keep in mind, me and Indy were very much in the church, right? And Texas is very religious and everything. And so I think for us it was like everyone out here is like, why did you get married so young? Everyone in Texas kept saying, Why are you guys waiting so long? You know, we we literally got married right after I graduated. So I became an elementary teacher and then I graduated, and then everything happened within six months, you know? It's just what your society does. You're in that culture where everyone's getting married at 20 or 21, and that's just what people do, and you just kind of follow suit. You're very influenced by your environment, right? I think, and then what ended up happening is Indy got opportunities to come out and be an actor on a sitcom in LA, and he was flying back and forth, and we had two little babies, and truth between you and me is like Texas is easy living, like financially, it's easy living. You get a big house, it's nice, it's comfortable, it's definitely easier than LA, right? But it never felt like home, you know, it never felt like these are my people the whole time I was there. So then we decided if you're gonna pursue this career, I'm gonna support you. Let's just move to LA, let's take the kids. The kids were like one and six months old, and we took the kids to LA and we moved, and we lived in this little tiny apartment while he pursued his career, his dreams, and I got a teaching job and I became a teacher, and then I kind of got back into coaching again when I got out to LA. But the funny thing about that is moving to LA was the easiest transition I've ever had in my life. The first time I felt home, and let me tell you, I know we have a lot of things we can say, check out LA this, LA that LA this. But I instantly clicked and vibed and met people and had fun and this and that. And I do generally feel a lot to have to do with your astrology sign. I don't know if you ever go in and you do your astrology map. There's this one thing you can do with Chat GPT, so I challenge you. You say, here's my astrology sign. Where are the best places for my who I am according to my astrology map? Where's the best place I should live? And it's so funny because one of them's Los Angeles, and it kind of makes sense now, right? It's like, okay, that makes sense. The perfect balance for me of harmony, maybe chaos, busyness, but it's ocean and mountains and nature. So it is, it does make sense. The other place is Malibu, which I love Malibu. Oh, I love Malibu.

SPEAKER_01 15:44

Between this time in going through all of these transitions, it seems like it just all kind of came at the same time. What was your internal dialogue telling you? And what were you feeling while this was happening? It seems that you moved to LA and things felt like it was in alignment. But what internally were you going through while you were experiencing all of these fast transitions and moving really fast.

SPEAKER_03 16:16

Honestly, kind of that part of my life was moving so fast. I don't even know if I even took a stop to reflect. You know, you just sometimes in life you're just going, going, going. And I think that happens with a lot of marriages, raising children and balancing careers, and you're just going, going, going, and you're in the hustle of life, and then you realize realistically, we had to sweep things under the carpet. We had to move forward. You know, we're running to little league and volleyball practice and football and all these different things are pulling us. And then I'm working all day. I mean, when we first moved to LA, I was out of the house at like six in the morning and I wouldn't even get home till 11 at night because I had like three or four jobs trying to make everything work and kind of grinding us out. So I will tell you, one of the hardest things generally was marriages. I always laugh because people are like, oh my God, marriage is so easy. And then I'm like, because you don't have kids. It's not marriage, it's easy to be with someone when God just plops these two individuals or these kids in your life that one are little mere reflections of all your goodness and all the things you don't like about yourself throwing in your face. You're sitting here yelling at your kids or getting upset with them, but you realize they got it from you. It is challenging and it's exhausting raising kids. I would say the toughest thing a marriage goes through. And don't get me wrong, there's like wonderful moments. When I was getting pregnant, I was like, Oh my god, pregnancy is so amazing. You're gonna love it. It's so beautiful. And everyone talked about how beautiful it was. Everyone talked about how wonderful it was. No one talked about the ugly side of it, yeah, right? And how hard it was and how much change your body goes through.

SPEAKER_01 18:00

That's a very interesting thing, Morgan, because I think now, and maybe this is where social media and all of the different tools that now we have access to, because I think I'm on the other side of the spectrum. I don't have kids, and all I see on social media is pregnancy, it's horrible. You can go through all of these different things. Women are opening up about all of the postpartum depression, the pre-partum depression, all of the changes on your body. It's almost to the point where I think we're on the other extreme. Not everyone is being super negative that I'm like, do I even want to get pregnant? Why would I put myself to this, right? But it's it's one of those things where I don't know if I'd much rather expect the worst and have the best, or people talking and you having to compare yourself with why are all these women having a great pregnancy and I'm over here struggling with so many different things, which in reality, most likely all of these women were struggling with the same thing because nobody was talking about the hard things. And I think that's something that we get to have now. Information coming in different ways. Like sometimes I wish I didn't know much because it'll make things easier. Going back to you being pregnant and it becoming an extra layer of your marriage. I do think though, if you get to marry somebody, it should feel easy before kids because, as you said, it's only gonna get more complex. And so, at the very least, this person is easy, right? Like your relationship. Then you go and get married and you have kids. I think it's a huge transition in Cross Road where there's a new challenge that is put to the relationship. What were some challenges that you felt once the dust settled, once things started to kind of just wind down and you get into routine? When were moments where you started to realize, oh, this is challenges that we're having, or I didn't see them before, and now I've seen them, and how did that play a role in your relationship that affected some things that came later on?

SPEAKER_03 20:15

Um, weirdly, I think because I'm the big transition of moving to Houston, it was almost I now can potentially move anywhere and be totally fine. I've already done that big hump, like leaving my family, leaving where I grew up, uprooting myself. So now I could literally like Michael said, Hey, let's move to Spain. I'd be oh, okay, let's go do it. I mean, I have to think about it a little bit because I have a career and I have my kids are still in college, but it would be an easy thing. The funny thing is that LA transition and the kids um was really difficult on my husband at the time. It was the first time he ever left Texas, and this was his first transition. You were saying, you're right, you guys are on the other pendulum. When I grew up, I was on this pendulum that everything is roses, and our job was to wake up, put our makeup on before our husbands woke up, have breakfast laid out. Oh my god, like how are you? Let me massage your shoulders. And like it was this whole view of women, especially in Texas and middle America. We were there to serve our men and serve our kids and do all this stuff. I think for me, pregnancy is amazing, marriage is awesome, raising kids is awesome. You ever see those movies? I forget what movie it is. It's with Harry Styles, but it's it's kind of crazy. I don't know the actress, but she feels all the women are super happy, and she's like, Oh, I know what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_01 21:43

It's the neighbors, and it's kind of it's it almost looks like these they're trapped in this little town, and all of the women are automated to act the same and be just housewives, and then one of the housewives starts kind of becoming a little. A bit conscious that this doesn't seem like it's right.

SPEAKER_03 22:03

Yeah, set things off.

SPEAKER_01 22:04

I think it's an automation city and it's actually a virtual reality. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_03 22:10

They were like hooked to their brains and it was producing the images.

SPEAKER_01 22:14

You grew up in the in the environment of this is what women are meant to do. You are meant to get married and have kids, take care of your husband. That means you're successful. That is setting the stage for you.

SPEAKER_03 22:27

And I would sit here and say now the pendulum has switched that we're feeding so much propaganda and fear to young women. There has to be a balance. We're always on this pendulum swinging back and forth, whatever it's like, whatever's going on. To some degree, you're an information overload, right? You're getting so much information that you're almost getting desensitized. We're like, I got no information, and everything was navigating through sea blind, right? Like we were just navigating through the waters with no navigation system, nothing. We're just going out there on the ocean, figuring our stuff out and reacting to whatever challenges came in front of us. I always have this talk with my daughter because she's like, Well, why would you even do that? Mom. And I'm like, we didn't have the information you have, we didn't have the access to it. It was just we were blind, navigating through life blindly. So it's just like for me, realistically, if you had the money, then you would go to therapy, right? Of course. But rarely did people.

SPEAKER_01 23:26

But then there is also that layer at the time when therapy was looked as weird and oh my god, are you crazy? Now it's been normalized and almost at the point where if you don't go to therapy, then you have issues and your men needs to go to therapy. And it's just taking it to the other side. For sure. In the past, and not many years ago, therapy was seen as this isn't okay, you're crazy. So I can imagine even trying to do that at the time.

SPEAKER_03 23:52

No, it was a lot. It was pretty, oh, what's wrong with your marriage? And I was like one of the first ones that would go around and be like, Well, do you take your car to get a tune-up? And they're like, Yeah, I'm like, that's what therapy is getting a tune-up, checking on yourself, making sure you're in line with things. I moved to LA, I became so busy providing for the family in this moment. Indeed, had to stay with the kids. And I think that transition was really hard for him because when you work, you're thriving in social worlds, you're through, you're making new friends, you're doing this, you're getting new job offers. Life was pulling me really hard in this direction. It was a struggle. Being an actor, a musician, uh a movie producer, being in that world, it's not an easy life, but that took a toll on, I would say, that transition of how it affected him, took a toll on him and our marriage. And I think sometimes you sit here and you start when you raise kids, you and Nola can sit there and be like, if this happens, how are you going to react as parents? Because now the information's out there for you guys to sit here and go, okay, how are we going to parent? And what's your parenting style? If our kid is doing this, what would you do? See, none of that information was given to us. I was coming as a parent from what I the environment I came from, and he was coming from a parent of the environment he came from. That clashed a lot. My parents, even today, are like, Morgan's the greatest, she's so awesome. All they do is praise me and love me, and they're like, You're the best. And that's not the environment he comes from and culture. Like also, he's from Sri Lanka. So Sri Lankans are raised completely different. They're all they care about is making sure their kids are financially successful so they're taken care of and they can take care of their kids, right? So it is a very much education, get your job, grind, grind, grind. So for him to want to be an actor and a musician did not line up to being an engineer. His family wanted him to do this and this, and so that was also a challenge because they just kind of like took their hand off of him to some degree because he wasn't doing what they wanted him to do. When we raised our kids, those factors become huge. So that was a big challenge too. Because then when they get into sports, and we both love sports, so we knew we wanted our kids to be in sports, right? But the way we went about sports really kind of clashed sometimes. And I think for me, I had to find the beautiful chaos in that and find a healthy balance. And you just have to step back and maybe take a back seat to sometimes, and then sometimes intervene. It's like a dance, right? You have to do, you want to respect your partner, you want to respect them, and you're not trying to tear them down in front of the kids or anything, and vice versa, but we're trying to find a balance to where we both agree on how we're handling things. I mean, there was times he was the better parent, and there was times I was the better parent, and that's just how it is.

SPEAKER_01 26:50

Which is okay because you guys are only human, and that's the thing. We're live in an imperfect world, and to expect to be perfect is the most unrealistic expectation. It really is something that none of us should expect because it just sets you off for failure. Making mistakes is what makes you grow, and making mistakes, it is something that we should embrace because we don't know better. After going through all of these transitions, I cannot imagine what it was like for him to come from a very traditional family setting and then jumping into LA, wanting to get out of that road of okay, I'm gonna provide for my family, do this nine to five job because LA is different, people move different in LA. He was probably chasing his own dreams, which you know, you have to take risks. It requires a lot of different things before you even get there. Being an actor or an artist in LA, most of the people don't make it, and the ones who do, they have to go through so many things. So I cannot imagine on top of the layer of changing the dynamic in the family circle, also tapping into the industry and trying to break in. Of course, there's a lot of stress. I cannot imagine you also going through it because as a partner, when my partner is going through something, I feel it. I cannot imagine what that was like for you, not only for what you were going through, but also seeing all of the things that were happening around you because you're very in tune with that. When was the point where you start feeling okay, this is not longer aligning with where I want to be? When did that start? And then also when was the time when you decided, okay, this isn't it? This isn't working out for me anymore.

SPEAKER_03 28:43

You know, I feel like for me, um being married my whole life was always my truth, my goal. Because my parents are were about to celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary. My parents have been together since third grade. All my uncles have been together. They've all married their high school sweetheart. So I think for me, what you people don't realize, and it is literally the story of America. I will be honest, like, America does not make raising a family easy. I'll just put it out there. The reality is I was grinding and working really hard. I gladly did it. So it's just for me, I don't really have these like lofty dreams. I love people and I love coaching and I love teaching. So it's just like this was my world. Being around little kindergarten kids, loving on them all day was just enough for me, right? It was easy for me to support. But the thing is, is I'm exhausted by the end of the day. He's feeling neglected because he hasn't seen me all day. And this is very similar to maybe how wives feel that stay home and husbands at work all day. There is an exhaustion of trying to keep up and give the best to your family. And on top of that, we didn't want to succumb to the LA lifestyle of raising kids. So we really wanted to stay rooted with our Texas and Midwest values on our kids, and our kids couldn't understand it. If our kids were in the Midwest in Texas, they would see everyone's kids being raised the way we were raising them. But out here in LA, nurture versus nature, yeah. It's like, oh, here, have some weed, have this, chill. Oh, your friends could do this. Oh, you don't want to play your sport anymore, just quit it. Oh, you don't want to do this anymore. Cool. It has a very nonchalant, you're disrespectful to your parents. And then they're like, you know what? Let's just sit here and talk about it. No, don't be disrespectful. That's not okay. And so my kids couldn't understand that. So that was like a really difficult thing for them. That was challenging for me and Indy because we both believed in that principle of having them be grounded people, even though London's getting invited to like Shaquille O'Neal's daughter's birthday party, and oh, she's getting invited, and oh, she's hanging out with Brawny, or hey, she's doing this. She's around this whole celebrity lifestyle, but she's like, why am I having to like wake up and work out or wake up and go run? Why am I running sprints on the track? And why am I doing all this work? And here's the thing now. She plays volleyball at USC and she's an amazing volleyball player. And it was just a challenge. It was hard for me and Indy to even go through that. And my son is a football player, he's a quarterback at the University of Houston. So now living their life, and yeah, now my kids in hindsight go, I'm so grateful how tough you guys were and how you held us to it. You know, that standard. Now they're grateful because they see all their friends that like are so weak-minded or don't have depth and don't have empathy for what other people go through, they're getting it now. I think also the biggest thing that started happening, which is the second hardest transition of my life, is is having my kids go to college. We were in this hustle and bustle focusing on the kids. Everything was about the kids, everything was about our life. And because it's so difficult, you don't have time to just go, hey, like what you said to me really hurt my feelings and do deep dives on it all the time. You kind of go, okay, that's just gonna have to be put on the back burner. And then when it gets put on the back burner, we forget about it and then it moves on. And then what ends up happening is your kids go to college. I'm sitting here thinking, oh my god, this is gonna be amazing. My kids are gonna go to college. I'm crying every day because I miss them deeply. And everything was about our kids, but okay, I'm coaching, I'm still around kids, I'm doing all this stuff. Everything's good for me. It was very hard on him. I cried like a normal mom. My husband at the time was more crashing out in a different way. He was internalizing it, it was coming out in definitely different ways. He was stressing out. I kept thinking, you know what, this is midlife, this is empty nesting, just give some patience to it. It'll be fine. You know, I have a lot of love for him and a lot of gratitude for him. I wouldn't have been with someone for 26 years if there wasn't like a lot of goodness around him. After a couple years of enduring a lot of the stuff he was going through, it all came at me. And our relationship just really shifted dramatically. And I realized it wasn't just the kids leaving, it was everything from the years that have been swept under the carpet that now we don't have any distractions, and it's just us. It's like a blessing and a curse. I if it means you gotten the biggest fight, and the next day, I am that person that could easily reset. The sun is shining, butterflies are out, hummingbirds are at the hummingbird feeder. Like, I'm just look at the flowers, look at this. Nature really resets me. I've never ever been a person that's taken things from my past and just like dwelled on it. I just have always new day. Let's move on. And he isn't, he is someone that holds very strongly on everything that's hurt him in the past, and he holds very tightly to it. When the kids left, he had no distractions, and I think he just all of it they're all not just hurt between us, hurt between other friendships, parents, things that he went through with the his own career, probably own career, things that he was struggling with. After a couple years, I just realized it wasn't something I was oh, like this isn't meant for me anymore. It's just more I have to leave, or this energy is going to destroy me. And it just came to a place, okay, I want to be with you, I want to ride this storm, but right now I'm drowning and no one is saving me. I realized I had to save myself, so I had to pull myself out of that situation, and that's just kind of what I did. The truth is both of us have come to like a place where we're we're we're friends. Like we both really want to see each other succeed. I want to see him succeed more than any person in this world. I believe in him wholeheartedly, even from the minute I was 18. I still hold that belief that he's gonna get achieved the things he wants to achieve. But we realized we had to detach with the idea of being married forever, just for the sake of being married forever. We would rather be a healthy friendship than force this cultural norm that marriage is the end-all be-all. Because the reality is, Laura, we're really not here to be married. Like, that's not like our purpose in life. I went to a speaker, Malibu, two days ago, and it was amazing. He's like a spiritual teacher, but one of the things he says, our whole purpose is you imagine, is we're a vest, right? And we're put in here with nothing but darkness around us. And we have the like source, and our goal is to get to the like source. And the way we continue is through these experiences and failures and journeys and paths and relationships that continue to challenge us. Like, how are we gonna react to them? Our biggest thing is like pause and react. And I do generally a good job pausing and reacting. I do sometimes have like a little five-minute meltdown, Morgan meltdown, and then I'm like quickly grounding myself. I think there's just times we realize, like, okay, we did our best and we're proud of what we did, and we both just want to see each other succeed and we want to be each other's biggest fans. Kids aren't affected by divorce, kids are affected by how the parents treat each other.

SPEAKER_01 36:37

Good and agree more.

SPEAKER_03 36:38

Divorce is divorce, but like if you're too ugly with each other, then that's what actually tears kids apart.

SPEAKER_01 36:44

It's so interesting to hear your your thoughts, and thank you so much for sharing your internal process of going through all of it. Being a kid from parents that are not together anymore, growing up and seeing this dynamic, and I'm not saying you were like that, but this is my own experience. I remember my mom told us that you know she was gonna be separated. I remember my older brother and I we look at each other and we're like, what took you so long? As kids, we saw this dynamic, and you see you're part of this family, and you're part of this energy that is so strong holding you together. And I think in that circle of your family, there is a huge intuition between everyone. Everyone kind of knows where everyone is, and but as kids, you don't tell your parents what to do, right? You guys are guiding us through what we are going to experience. Once you grow up in the stage of my life right now, I see my mom and I see more of a human being who is okay that she makes mistakes, but growing up is she's my hero and she does everything right. You're just looking for guidance. But now I'm like, oh wow, you're a human and you were going through all of these things, and you weren't alone going through this, right? Because it was your relationship, and I couldn't understand you until now. We definitely knew it's really hard to understand, but also you came from parents that were together still, and uh they might be still together, but you kind of had this is what marriage is, right? This is what I know, and this is what I'm trying to build because you are what you grew up with and what you saw when you were growing up. And then for me, I think I have the different effect where it's like I don't know if I believe in marriage, or I don't know if I believe in this because I never truly saw that closeness between like parents, and it's just something that I have to work through to be able to open up to love. Um, and it took me a long time to do that self-discovery and rearranging and reassessing because I never saw that real life. And a lot of my friends they do, their parents are still together, we go to their houses and you see these marriages that are going for 30, 40 years, and you're like, wow, this is like hits different. But it's very interesting the different dynamics, and I don't know if you want to share a little bit of this and you're after tell me if you do, but I know you had a specific dynamic with your husband. Was there any part of you where you said, I'm trying to find a different type of relationship, or that you felt maybe this is not meant for me anymore. This is the kind of love and relationship that I'm looking for. Doesn't mean that with your husband was in love, but it's just different.

SPEAKER_03 39:28

The one thing I want to say is I think that's been the hardest part for our kids, is because when they left to college, they saw their mom and dad being best friends, and that's it's not how they left to college, right? They left and said, Oh my god, my mom and dad are best friends, they love each other so much. I'm a very loving and affectionate person. Like I just hug everyone, I want to kiss everyone. Very like physical, yeah. I love I'm like, I love physical touch. I'm like, it's like my it's it is my jam.

SPEAKER_01 39:57

Same. Hey, fix physical touch and what's the other one? Quality time, but if I have to pick the two physical touch, and I'm good. I don't need anything else. Oh, for sure. Me too.

SPEAKER_03 40:06

I might you could touch me, and then I'm like, okay, I'm everything in life is like heaven in order now. Yeah. So I think it was that part was really difficult because when they went to college and then they came back to college and saw their whole life, like their whole world, their mom and dad, completely dramatically change. That was hard. Yes, we did have a we were in this situation on my journey through that. It was like I am a Gemini. I look at astrology signs as God's filing system. Innately, this is what God is, right? He has an organizational system. So I look at astrology as not like witchcraft because there's just too many Geminis that I mean, and there's too many Scorpios that I mean, and there's too many Aquariuses that I mean. Michael's an Aquarius, and my daughter's an Aquarius.

SPEAKER_01 40:57

Noah's an Aquarius.

SPEAKER_03 40:59

Oh my god, and if he'll say something, and then like London will make the same comment about the same thing, it's just funny to me. But it's not all of us. Gemini is a part of who I am, it's not who I am, right? Yeah, I'm still affected by my environment, my genetics, all these other different things that make me my unique individual. I guess what I'm saying is going through it, a Gemini just tries things. Like I'm always up for anything. I was like the first person to be like, oh, let's go skydiving, oh, let's go to bungee jumping. When things get presented to me, I'm always willing to try something. So, like when it was presented to me, I tried it. And I was like, okay, navigating that for a while. So I realized, okay, I don't like this, this, and this. This is really starting to like affect me. How do we make this work to where it doesn't feeling this way, but you're still able to do what you want to do? Because like I also am someone wants to, everything was about him. Do you know? Everything was about indie. My whole world would be about indie. And I honestly, I'm not like, I don't regret it. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, that's just who I am. I'm a lover. I I love like it's hard for me to, I'm very tunnel vision on my teams. Like when I'm coaching, I love my team, I embrace my team. It's just, but I also like to create a space where people get to be authentically who they are, and I don't ever want to control and change. I've learned and I'm still learning boundaries, but this was a big journey for me to go through boundaries, right? I would slowly realizing I don't like the way this is making me feel. I don't like where our relationship's going. I don't like what we're putting it through. And I would talk with him about it, and then we would try to come up with solutions with it.

SPEAKER_01 42:49

And then just these dynamics started after kids left, or these happened way before that.

SPEAKER_03 42:57

Oh no, this happened like when the kids were little, when we moved to LA, and it was like a kind of a drastic change for me because I've never heard of stuff like this in my life, you know.

SPEAKER_01 43:08

Like I just I don't know if you want to mention what it is because we just talk about the diagram.

SPEAKER_03 43:13

I know it was presented to us to be like in a style.

SPEAKER_01 43:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 43:18

And I um it was very it it took me back, but like at the end of the day, this was something um he felt like, no, this will help our marriage, it'll make it better, this and that. In his head, that's what he thought. And I obviously think, okay, I'll go do it. Let's try it, you know.

SPEAKER_01 43:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 43:41

And then eventually came to a place where it's like, oh, I don't like it. And we had to get to those crossroads. Um, and really kind of I had to put my foot down on some stuff and say, I don't like it. And he had to say what he doesn't like. And here's the thing in all of that journey, do I? Ever want to do that again? Absolutely not. It is not what I want to be. It's not who I am. I don't judge people who have to go through that. But would I ever take it back? Absolutely not. Like it literally probably is the one thing that taught me more about myself and what I like, what I don't like, and who I am, what I stand for, where my moral compass is more than anything. I think so many things in life just culturally, like religion says, oh, you need to be this person, and cultural norms say you need to be this person. Well, then now when you're out there doing whatever you want, having free will, that's when you really just figure out, okay, who I really am and what I like and what I don't like. And now I know what I like and what I don't like. And it's definitely not that lifestyle. I think for us, that was a really challenging thing that I think in his head thought this is going to make our marriage flourish. But I think inevitably it hurt our marriage way deep, you know. I grew up, my dad is um, he's a saint. Like he's just generally like the nicest guy, so wonderful, just that moral guy that wakes up and grinds for his family, was like teacher of the year, coach of the year. Everyone's like, I love Chuck. So to have this really strong moral person in my life, I realize like I really, really, that's what I love, you know? And I and it's not to say Indy's not that person. He is 100%. He's that person, but he also has this other side to him and these other insecurities. When you're so in love, you just kind of do it, right? You just kind of go, oh, like especially as a woman, like we're not we I wasn't raised in the same social society you were raised in. I was really taught that, like, if you love your man, you do what your man says, you know.

SPEAKER_01 46:03

And thank you for sharing that. But it's there's so many things that I can't relate to you in the way that I grew up until I was 15 in Colombia, and this is a very conservative, religious country. You know, my mom grew up here in you gotta get married. She was 26, and everyone is like, You're getting old, like what's going on here? You haven't had kids, you you know, you haven't gotten married or anything. Thankfully, when I moved here, I was 15. I was older enough where culturally I think I already had my values in set in place. I wasn't kind of back and forth with this culture is pulling me to different directions. But at the same time, I came in the the right time because I saw a different possibility. And I think that for you was the same, this transition from Texas and religious. And now you come to LA, people are more open and progressive, and oh my god, we can do all these things, and you can just live your dream and do all that. And I felt the same things because I moved to the Bay Area, which is Northern California. I just saw all these things, and I was like, oh my god, like husbands cook, husbands take care of the kids, like the moms are the ones going to the office. Like, this was such a huge shift for me. I loved it. And listen, who cares? Women, my friends, they grow up to be mothers and they want to do all that and while having a career, like that's perfect. But also the alternative that if you don't want to do that, that's okay too. Something that really resonated with me that you said is you grew up with religion, and then you come and you leave the real world and you have free will. And then you kind of start exploring your own religion, and then you start questioning some things that you grow up with. And I think that's when real spirituality kind of sinks in because it's come from what does my soul actually need, and what do I need to experience to be able to feed my soul with real from like the real world and make the right decisions for me rather than what this is telling me and whether or not you continue your religion, but it's coming from I make this decision rather than this is how I grew up and this is what I gotta do. What you said is very true. You were probably meant to live all of these experiences. I know you're still living more things and probably more to come. I love that you don't regret and that you don't think like I would have changed anything because it's made you the person that you are today. And we had had a few interactions, Morgan, and I love every time I see you. It's it's very fun, and you have a great personality and just kind of lively, bubbly is what they call. It's really nice to have you around. And I think that none of this person that I see in front of me today probably wouldn't be here if we didn't have this past. But now that brings us to the present, if you want to share where you are in love now, and how are you feeling? And yeah, sort of like the light at the end of the tunnel. How did you even get here?

SPEAKER_03 48:57

I feel like I'm not quite on the other side of the tunnel. I think there's still a lot of grief that happens when things end, you know, and when someone dies or the death of a marriage, her a career or all these different things, there's like grieving that goes. And we know grieving comes in waves, right? It's just like some days. But like you said, I think the most important thing, it's like if I grew up in church my entire life and everyone in church is telling me how I'm supposed to be, or how society this society world is telling me, oh, this is what women should look like, or this is what this, this, and all these things, until you really fully strip all of that and you live completely kind of like almost like a wild animal, I guess. You don't really know if you're choosing those things for yourself and your soul, or you're choosing those things to appease your environment, right? I don't think people need to go to the extreme, but I just do think people have to go through, I guess, their free will, their darkness, whatever, to figure out those moments to see what really, what really actually matters here, what feeds their soul. And I think it comes to me, it's like, yes, I'm still grieving, in all honesty. I like there's days I cry. I miss my kids a lot. This has been, it's taken a toll on my kids. I think they are going through relationships too, and now they're starting to understand, oh, relationships aren't this easy thing, and they're having a little more empathy about what me and dad have gone through figuring out what I'm gonna do. Like, this is you spend 26 years building a future and life with someone, and then all of a sudden you're like, okay, like I'm doing it, and we're still doing our business together because we still care and we don't want like the whole world to fall apart. So I really appreciate him. Um, our relationship, but meeting Michael kind of came at a time I wasn't expecting it. Um, I was just reading a lot of self-help books and just kind of taking long walks on the beach, which I still do, and just going to see all of my daughter's volleyball games. Like, I'm just I was actually sitting here thinking, I think watching my daughter play volleyball is the biggest joy I ever get in life, in all honesty. She's incredible, you know, and I just like love watching her. It just it like fills my cup. But with that said, I think I we ended up getting a new job and meeting Michael. We went and had um dinner one night, and I was just kind of going in it like, okay, what does this strength and conditioning coach want?

SPEAKER_01 51:26

Like, you know, I just was like what we were doing.

SPEAKER_03 51:30

Who is this guy? Okay, like, why are you talking to me? I met someone across the table who had death, who had soul, who had compassion and understanding, and who's gone through his wars and his battles, just no judgment, you know, and we ended up just pouring our entire life out because it so quickly became a safe space. And I realized, oh my god, this is so safe. I didn't really talk to him for a few weeks, and then he reached back out to me, and it became a friendship. And then we would when we would hang out, we we talked about a lot of spiritual stuff that really we both went through with the church, with relationships, with our own spiritual journey, and we both just genuinely care a lot about people. He just kind of started showing up for me in ways that really no one was showing up for me in a very dark time in my life, and we just became like building a friendship, and then I just started seeing him. This guy has such a strong moral compass. Because generally, I'll just be honest, like tall black basketball player that's a strength and conditioning coach living in LA.

SPEAKER_01 52:43

Yeah, like you're just sitting here going to be like, I don't even go there because I no moral count. And it's I've had the same hesitation with no because all of these things that I hear about athletes is stay away from athletes, this is not good. Yeah, never have I thought that I was gonna end up in this type of relationship because I wasn't even thinking about it. I wasn't around them, I never met one. I mean, there's just such an aged community of people that it's really hard to I you know just walk down the street and oh, this is these tall dudes that are pros and just play basketball and just being athletes their whole lives. And so I definitely had that hesitation and you said I wasn't really trying to be serious at the time, I was just having a good time in my life. I love that dynamic where people say it happens the time that you least expect it. And for those people that are single, they're like, oh my god, I'm so tired of hearing this. But I'm like, no, I swear it's true. You were in your own little path, and you're saying, like, you're kind of grieving, you're transitioning to a new job, another crossroad. Life just happens to put this person that started to just resonate with you. I don't know if you heard about this new show called Age of Attraction. Have you seen it? Oh no, it's super cute. Honestly, one of my favorite shows that I've seen so far. They go in and they're not allowed to talk about their age. They're only about to talk about just five, right? I do believe that because in different times of life you meet different types of people. Sometimes they're older than you, sometimes they're younger than you. A lot of my friends are 26, 27, two best friends that I have. But why do I resonate with this person more than my older friend? And it's a soul connection. Sometimes it's hard to understand. I thought the way you met your boyfriend, Michael, people call MT, and it was just so cute how you guys found this connection. That was the only thing that mattered. You found each other in a play that was just seems perfect for both of you because you know, from the conversation that I was able to have, the three of us and the four of us when we're talking, it just seemed like a perfect match in the moment. You were able to listen to him, and he was able to listen to you, and the noise of the world quiet down. I think that's when you're okay. I found somebody who's able to listen to me and actually hear me out while the rest of the world is just moving forward. I just really love that, and I wanted you to talk about it because this is like such a beautiful connection, and for many people that maybe struggle with love and transitioning, maybe they have been in a relationship their whole life and then they just found themselves singles. You you met your ex-husband when you were 18. Really, you never had a time where you were alone until that time when you actually find yourself like, okay my god, I'm single again and I am navigating this situation, but you're a completely different person that when you were 18. What I find about your story so inspiring is that when you do have that personality of I'm trying things and I'm not afraid to try it out and then make a decision for myself. But a lot of people don't. A lot of people, as you said, they navigate life out of fear. They don't want to try new things, they want to stay in the comfort zone. But there is a life to live on the other side of fear. That's my main point about finding your story so uh exciting and that people need to hear because you just need to be open, you just need to go for it because it doesn't matter when, and in that least time expected, it could happen for you, whether it is love, career, yeah, or anything else.

SPEAKER_03 56:35

I would say there's two things you have to think of when it comes to love or career, you have to do your own healing. So it's just like God is going to put someone in there that matches the level of healing that you're going to go through, right? So if you haven't done your healing in yourself, then you're gonna see that there's a lot of people at that level of where they are in life coming into your life to continue challenging you to level up and grow up in your healing, right? So you'll see repeat offenders. You know what I'm saying? You're gonna keep going through the same relationship. When I started focusing on that whole journey, deep dive on myself, I think I was going up this healing journey where I was actually taking a deep breath and pausing and really seeing like my her. I made so many mistakes. When I was going on this journey, I think that's when Michael came in to my life. There's two things. So, one, you have to work on your own healing. You cannot be a hot mess and think you're gonna get some like knight in shining armor over here that's gonna come save you. No, you're going to get the guy that continues to challenge your hot mess till you get out, grow out of it, right? So for me, it's like that's one. I think most girls need to understand is don't worry about that. Worry about this. Do you know? Get this right. The other thing is is have certain. Like, there's one thing I will say for certainty. We need to live in certainty that love is there for us. Our love is there, and all we're doing is waking up, letting life unfold for us, learning the lessons, learning how to pause our reactions, learning how to learn through those moments, learning how to sit here and say, Okay, this is lemons. How do I make lemonade? Or the rain is raining, like, how do I dance in the rain? Like having those moments to realizing that it's not the end all be all, and like really seeing the positive of failing and lessons. I'm a coach, so this is what I literally talk about every day, right? To my team. Like, the lessons aren't learned in winning, the lessons are learned in failing, and that is it sucks. No one wants to lose, you know? And it inevitably I have lost a lot, and I'm still trying to learn through those losses, and I'm still grieving through those losses, and I still have a lot of room to grow. But I would sit here and say, you have to live in certainty that love is there for you, your career is going to unfold when it needs to unfold, and you need to live in certainty. If you live in fear and doubt and all that stuff, you can raise your, I believe in like higher vibes, yeah, higher energy, good vibes. If you can raise your vibes to be good, and it's not to say you're not gonna have a day where you cry and you're not gonna have a day where you're angry and not experiences, but what you don't want is those moments to swallow you where now you're living in those low vibes, because all low vibes are gonna do is only attract other low vibes around you. Inevitably, you have to be certain that your career is going to unfold the way it's gonna unfold. When bad things happen or breakups happen. I was actually just talking to my ex about this. This all happened because, in my opinion, it was more for him than it was for me and the kids. And I will tell you, breakups have to happen. Losing a job has to happen, failing has to happen in order for God to create more room for bigger blessings and abundance to come to your life, right? And I do just generally think my ex is going places where this detachment, the stress of family or marriage or whatever, had to disconnect from him so he can have create more room where he needed to grow and become the man he needed to be for his blessings. And I don't know if that could have ever actually happened with me. So I would say those two things, if I was giving any advice to women, I'd say, listen, work on your own healing, forgive yourself. I'm still working on forgiving myself because there's things I just did that I'm very disappointed in myself. You don't need a man, we're not here to get married. Yes, it's wonderful, but like we're not we're not here to get married, just to have certainty. I know I'm a lovable person. I've always known that since I was a little girl, and I have been in one long relationship after another long relationship, and I have like even the minute I became single, it's so funny you said about the age. Well, let's talk a little bit, like, because Michael's a lot younger than me, right? It's like the reality is when I met him, I didn't even know his age, but I didn't know any really anything about him.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:18

How do you think he what was your first impression of Michael?

SPEAKER_03 1:01:21

Honestly, I kind of just thought he was like in his mid-30s. I mean, it's not because of looks or even late 30s, in all honesty. Truthfully, it's because he's just so old soul. I do believe in old souls, right? I do believe there's souls that have just experienced so many things in life that they possess a wisdom that goes beyond their years of earth, right? What they've been walking on earth. So, like for me, his soul is what I fell in love with. I was like, this guy acts older than me. I have a very youthful soul, so it kind of meshed well, right? So I just like it was his soul I fell in love with, and then I found out really his age, and I was like, Oh, that's a lot. But like, re here's the reality is in this time of my life where I was single, Michael's if that's the oldest guy to ever like hit on me. Like, I was getting hit on by young 20s, and I'm just like, oh, like 23, 23, 24, 25. This is too much, you know. Meeting him, someone who's older, awesome, you know, like it wasn't this young pop. There is this thing where people are just deciding they're gonna be in love with who they're in love with, and they don't care about their their race, their religion, their color, their country, their origin, or their age, right? It is something beautiful, but there are challenges with it. But like it is very beautiful, and I think for me, he acts older than I am. I act younger than what my age is, and we don't need to guess my age. It's just it is what it is. I'm just really grateful because he's he's very grounded and down to earth. He's everything I kind of need right now, and um, I'm very appreciative of everything he's brought into my life. He's uh very wise, and I appreciate that. And he's very gentle and thoughtful on the way he speaks and converses with me, and I really needed that. He really enjoys hanging out with my ex, they enjoy each other. Like my ex like adores Michael, like he thinks this is the best thing that's ever happened to you in a long time. I'm very appreciative of him being in your life, so it gives my ex a lot of peace. I'm sure it hurts them. It's not saying it doesn't hurt him. One day some girl's gonna come into my ex's life. Right now, there's just a lot of girls. Right now, one day, and you're funny, one girl's gonna set, like, you know, really sweet, sweet girl. And I'm going to, I'm gonna be so happy if she treats him well, and I'm gonna be so grateful for that. And I'm gonna be so appreciative of him getting a second chance at love and being able to take all the things we learned from our marriage and our relationship, and him getting to apply it and make it build him a better life and a better relationship. And I want to fully be there, but it doesn't mean it's not gonna make her hurt a little bit, like you know, but but I I think that's natural.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:11

I think that's the beauty of it. Some people say the people that were together for so long, whether you guys got married or just a breakup after 10 years, sometimes people are so angry. If there was so much love there, where did the love go? First of all, you guys have a great relationship, you will always be in each other's life because you have kids together. There was love. There was love, and because and and the reason why there was so much challenges is because you care about each other. Those challenges choosing to fight for something for so long for me is the biggest sign of love. Because if you didn't care, you just wouldn't care. You just let it go. Yeah, you agree to everything, and you just don't do anything about it. It seems there was a lot of love and a a lot of love for a long time. Just because you guys are not together, it doesn't mean this person doesn't still love you in a different way, just like the way you love this person. He is in some kind of way part of this new uh chapter of your life where you are experiencing love in a different way, in maybe in a way that uh serves you more, and he's able to see that it in a way it heals him because of all of the things that put back and not talked about during your relationship, you guys didn't have time to talk about those things. So, as you said, there is healing that comes even after the fact. We're all healing from something, we are all moving forward, we are all trying to pivot and just get better as life goes on. And as you said, there are challenges in your career relationship, but every relationship has challenges. There's people that they could be on the same page, but then you have the distance, or there's people that their careers are pulling them in different directions. I think there's always gonna be challenges is the way the universe shows up and puts you in that situation to make you grow. Otherwise, I don't think we would be in this world. I mean, if we were perfect, what's the whole point? And so that's very much that. And what you said about the healing being the number one thing you do before anything else, it's so important because it takes for you to get in that energy and in that synchronicity in life to be able to bring those same type of manifestations and just be it where you wanna be. And sometimes you have to embody that before it can show up. And I think that's what a lot of people struggle is that sometimes you ask for something and you kind of just want to sit down and wait for it. But the truth is you gotta become that before it becomes anything. You gotta put the hard work, you have to make room for exactly like abundance to come in.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:00

But if you're filled with so much hurt and pain and anger and rage and fear and doubt, that's what's filling up your cup. And then there's very little room for like God to do a lot of stuff and bring things into your life because you're only leaving this much room for him. So at the end of the day, it's like really kind of that's where you heal and release and let go and detach. And I am in this process of detachment. I have to learn to detach to things if it's meant to be and let life unfold. I don't want to strangle life anymore. I want it to unfold. When I separated, things were ugly, and I don't want to tell every woman, like, oh my god, like I just like skipped out the door and just like packed up my bags, and it was like so wonderful. And then we were like best friends. No, it wasn't. It was really painful. It was really hard on the kids for about a couple years, and it's they're still struggling with it because it's new to them. But like we are finding our way through it, and I think for us, we're just saying, we are family, like I'm still the mother of the kids, you're still the father of the kids. We love our kids to heal this relationship and make it coexist together, that we care so much about each other, we cannot let it completely burn out because of the rage, anger, and the things we put each other through. And I think for us, we are not, we are finding our way through that. We're seeing light at the end of that tunnel, and we are finding our way to unite in that way. But I just want to make it clear to your audience, it was not, it was um lots of tears. Like I would be sitting at an Italian restaurant by myself. I ate by myself, I swear, for three years. Like I would just go to the movies by myself, go eat by myself, go on vacation by myself, go do this by myself. I got so good at being by myself, I actually love it. I love going to the bar. I always thought men were so weird when they went to the bar and just hang out with weird other men at the bar. And then I just started going to the bar because I wanted to catch like happy hours, you know, at like my favorite restaurants. And I'd be at the bar and I'd meet so many strangers, and it was really like healing and enjoyment for me because like I didn't need to meet them on a deep level, but we talked about real issues, but I didn't have to carry their burdens with me. It was just more like so great talking to you, and then you realize you're not the only person going through things, and I think that's important too. There was a lot of tears.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:22

This is the whole point of this podcast being real, as we said before, people paint it on the internet and still do this unrealistic thing, they're not showing the behind the scenes. It's not easy, and transitions do take time, and you do have to put in the work. And maybe what we're seeing right now, it's not totally the aftermath, but sort of it, it's the all of the work that you have to go through, all of the time that you sat alone. What you said is so important. You have to rebuild a relationship with yourself, you have to be alone and you have to feel the feels and cry. And trust me, I love it, I love a great cry. I talk about this all the time. I think every woman and man need to cry once a week because it's just so it just makes you feel so much better. It didn't happen overnight, and that's the whole point. It's the transition and what you're learning while you're going through it. We're so obsessed with the angle, with the I want to feel good again, I want to be loved, I want to have a career, I want to have all these things. But we forget that life is what happens between point A and B, and that's where growth happens. And I think that is the biggest takeaway from this conversation is take accountability to what were some things that you need to work on, what are some things that you need to forgive yourself that happened, and how do you keep moving forward from that? It's not gonna happen overnight, but it will happen. One last thing that I wanted to leave our audiences with, because sometimes we say like do the healing, but what would be the one thing you will tell somebody who's going through something that they can do to get themselves started, to do the jumpstart? Because you know, when you're in that negative head space, it's so easy to pull yourself out. And so, what is that one thing that somebody going through it can do that can get them started?

SPEAKER_03 1:11:15

This is a great question because we do like to send these generic things out. We're like, heel, you know, like be confident, and we don't really give like an actual certainty.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:24

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:25

Yeah, I will say the things that help me that I've realized are way more valuable. One is baby steps of gratitude. You are in a place where you are not grateful for anything, you're swallowed up in your pain, your grief, your sadness. You're in the state of mind, like sometimes you're so overwhelmed that you're like, I would rather just end my life than feel all this negative energy anymore. Like, you do get to those places. And I would say the one thing that's helped me is like baby steps of being grateful. I remember when I was like battling through my depression, my dog would need to go out for walks. And I would take him for a walk and I would just sit there. I'm grateful for my dog, I'm grateful for the sun, I'm grateful for the flowers, and then that would probably be as much gratefulness as I could put out. And then what I started realizing on every walk, and I used to call them gratitude walks. Every time I'd go out there, I would be able to be grateful for one more thing. And a lot of it was surface level. But then after a few months of this, I'd start being really like really actually gratitude, really feeling gratefulness. Then it started turning to actual gratitude. I'm grateful for the cook that made the food that's sitting in front of me and the delivery guy who brought the food to the cook. I was like taking it to a whole nother level. And I realized being grateful is really powerful. I think we sit there and go, oh my god, that's such yoga. That's such a but like it actually rewires your brain to not focus on all the sadness and the problems. Even in the rain, even in my storm, there's things to be grateful for. And when we focus on that, the sun starts coming out, the rain starts slowing down, and everything starts bringing color to life again. So I would really challenge people. That is one healing journey I would swear by, whether you write it in a book, write it before you go to sleep, go on walks outside, being in the sun, being in earth, that matters. And then two, I would say, and I'm challenging myself to do this more, is just five minutes deep breath. I'll tell you, when you're stressed out and you're sad and you're feeling this, it is stressing out your nervous system. You have to find ways to get your nervous system to settle scientifically. It is the breath, it is yoga. Like if you really sit there and you're like, you see this like 70-year-old woman, and you're like, damn, that 70-year-old woman looks good. Like, I want to look like her. Her posture is great, her body's intact. She's sitting here, like going on jogs and just loving life, and there's just a vibrance that just looks like sun kisses her all day, the sun kisses her face all day. And I'm telling you, every single one of those women religiously do yoga, every single one of them that I've met. And I realize it's the breath. What the breath does is it de-stresses your life, and yoga focuses on 45 minutes, 30 minutes of de-stressing your life and letting your nervous system reset instead of always being on light or fight.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:36

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:37

I would say that would be your two things. And then when you're ready to go read a self-help book, honestly, just ask life to unfold the way it needs to unfold. Maybe you meet someone that says, Oh, my life coach saved my life and you should really do it. Well, maybe that's life's way of saying, Hey, you need this life coach, or oh, you know, like I I did this workout and it really got me, and maybe that's life unfolding itself to you. Or maybe it's a book that you come across or a podcast, then kind of let life unfold. But like I would say those two practices, I would start those right now.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:12

It just starts from within. I think that's where going back and forth to that is the work starts inside. Those two things get you started. What I've noticed from my experience, because I've done the same, I always turn back to myself. A lot of people, what they do is we're having issues and we try to find the answers in the world outside of us and doing things that maybe are not good for us when really it's our soul yelling at us that we're meant to look inward. And then you get that started, and then yeah, the breeding and the grounding and all of that. I would even say that third step comes naturally because once you start working on yourself, the universe starts building these consequential events that start happening to you, and you don't even know why. And they start coming to you, and then all of a sudden the right book just falls in your or a podcast just came out and it just said something that resonated with you that you were just thinking yesterday. I noticed those coincidences of life, I think it's called, where just a lot of things start happening that it's almost like the universe starts talking back at you when you start doing that work. And the right resources, the right people, and the right circumstances start presenting itself to pull you out more and more of that darkness. The darkness is last, it's last, it's last. And then one day you wake up and you're like, Oh my god, I didn't even have that negative thought that it's been with me for the past three years. Oh, for sure.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:45

And it just happens slowly, but this is just happens without you knowing it. Two years from now, you're like, oh my god, I was like, so yeah, like what were you thinking? No one wants to hear it when they're going through pain that it won't last. The reality is we do understand it and we understand the weight out of it, but that just sounds too simple. Like we we want things to be so complex that we expect complexity and healing, right? Yeah, we expect complexity and blessings when really no, like it's actually simplifying your life.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:18

I also think it's a little bit of a result of the world that we live in, especially with the Western culture where it's like hassle and move, and like if you're not doing this and no pay, no gain, medicine, and yeah, and like you gotta take all these bedments and pills, and are you doing yoga? Are you doing pilates? Are you breathing? Are you doing meditation? Like, are you going to work? Are you working for the hours a yeah? Like all of these things, especially as women, too, that we get back and forth that we should be doing. And I can totally relate it, can be this simple. Like, we need to be busy, we need to be tired. I gotta do this to like actually feel better. Eastern philosophy, which I'm very in tune with, is always like stop everything you're doing, just stop, slow down. But the truth is our nervous system is running on fumes and fast. The thought of slowing down seems like the wrong choice, but it's really what's actually uncomfortable. It's uncomfortable. You have to sit down with your own thoughts and feelings and actually face that. And the truth, Morgan, is we are constantly looking for distractions of our own truth. And I think that's when there's chaos. What you said about back when you were in your marriage, there was a lot of things that didn't let you sit down and your ex-hobbin and think this is happening, but I'm not paying attention to it. And then once that chaos is removed and things settle, you're faced with the truth, and you're faced with you having to sit down with these feelings and feel uncomfortable. That's when things seemingly look like they're falling apart, but in truth, they're falling in place. It's because everything else was just not where it was supposed to be. The reality is it's uncomfortable, it's not easy. Doing the right thing sometimes isn't the thing that we wanna do, but it's what we need.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:04

This was wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:05

We could literally talk for literally another hour.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:08

Oh, we could.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:09

We literally could make it a whole movie, but I love the vulnerability, you opening up. It makes me so passionate because I think this conversation is gonna help a lot of people. It's already helped be me and just seeing different points of view and learning from other people's experiences. Opening up to the world and knowing that many people are going through this as a woman growing up in this world, it helps you feel like you have a community and that you're not alone. So, Morgan, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:45

No, thank you. I loved it, I appreciate it.