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Welcome to the Stay or Go podcast, where we're changing the dialogue around divorce so that no woman ever stays in her marriage out of fear. Get ready to dispel myths, learn life-changing tools, and build a solid foundation in yourself from which to make your decision. And now your host, me, Britta Joe. Hello, hello, y'all. Okay, so a couple days ago, I was riding in the car with Joe and I was thinking about the dates, and I was like, oh my God, this week marks six years since my divorce was finalized. And I could not let this momentous divorceversary, is that what we're gonna call it, go by without kind of having a fun way for myself to commemorate it with all of y'all? And as you guys can tell from the title, um, I did that by waking up this morning and I was like, okay, what looking back over these last six years, what are the things that I never expected coming out of the divorce that, you know, ended up happening that surprised me? Um, and I actually found quite a few of them, right? I'm sure there are many more, but I decided to just pick seven things to share with you all today on this podcast episode. And I even took some time this morning to start pulling out like old journals, going back and reading kind of where I was at when I was considering as I was going through the separation process, um, the actual divorce process, which took about nine months. And y'all, I just could never have dreamed what has happened to me since then. Felt so much compassion reading my past self, like her words, and just realizing how scared she was. She just had no blueprint for what was ahead. I mean, by all accounts, y'all, I was just stepping off a cliff, like out into the unknown, with the only thing really guiding me being my gut and my soul calls and this just deep feeling of like there is something out there for me. I have no clue what it is, where it is, how I'm gonna find it. The how was terrifying. No one else I knew had done this, had gotten divorced. I had not seen anybody that had done it well. And coming through all of that now, six years later, I'm like, wow, what a freaking epic journey. I think I read that somewhere. Maybe it was one of my um community members recently said that like the last few years of her process with considering divorce, with finding herself, she feels like she's lived more in those years than she did in the years before. And boy, do I feel that exact same sentiment about the last six years of my life post-divorce. Like, I have lived more life in the last six years than I did in the 28. I think I was 29 when I got divorced, in the 29 years before that, cumulatively. It's it's been that much of an intense, like amazing journey for me. So, in today's episode, I want to share some of the things that I never expected would happen in those six years since I left my marriage. And I'm gonna prep y'all. Some of those things on the list are really beautiful, some are even like miraculous, and some are heartbreaking, and some are difficult. Like there are definitely things that have happened these last six years that I was like, oh, that was not, I didn't think that was gonna happen. Um, and there will also be some that have just been like wildly unexpected. So you're gonna get the whole spectrum really here with this list. I didn't want to just give you guys all like the highs. I definitely wanted you to get some of the lows because I think it's so important that, I mean, you guys know through the podcast how much I want to emphasize the nuance of this whole process and the importance of understanding that just because you get divorced doesn't mean you don't still take your brain with you and your trauma with you and your CPTSD with you. All of those pieces still come with you. But I'm hoping to give you guys a little bit, even a little bit more of a peek behind the curtain around what life looks like after you end up getting divorced. And, you know, really sharing ahead of time that it totally is not all predictable. There are definitely things I hoped would happen that have, things that I had no idea were gonna happen that did. But the biggest piece and takeaway is that whether it goes the way you think it's gonna or it doesn't, which it'll be a little bit of both, it can all be powerfully yours. And that is what I've really taken away from the last six years where I'm landing in my celebration of my divorce adversary this week, is the last six years have been my journey, me living my life, um, experiencing myself, learning about myself, growing into myself in ways that I never did in the 30 years prior to that. Now, though, before we get into the episode, I have a tiny bit of housekeeping to give you guys all a heads up on. So when I moved over to Substack, I told y'all that I was gonna have my first week be an open, free episode to everybody. That's the first week of the month. And then the next three weeks end up getting to be for my paid subscribers on Substack. And y'all, as I'm coming to the end of this month, I was like, oh my God, wait a second. There is a fifth Tuesday. And I don't have that planned. So I sat with that for a little bit and I realized actually, this is just such a beautiful gift to me. I've decided that every fifth Tuesday, so if you look at the calendar, those happen every three months. And I am actually going to take that week of dropping an episode on the podcast off, y'all. And after a year and a half of podcasting, and really over the last uh seven to eight months, like trying to get one out every single week and being pretty consistent with that, this feels really beautiful to allow myself every three months to have that fifth Tuesday off. It gives me some time to let my creative juices just get to percolate inside me and even be expressed in other ways. Y'all know I'm kind of excited to do a little bit more writing, especially in the Substack space. So just know that next week and every three months on that fifth Tuesday, there will not be a podcast that ends up getting dropped. Depending on how I feel inspired, I may, you know, post something over on Substack. So the next episode that will drop after this one will be coming in on October 7th. And I'm really excited for that one because I will have just returned after our first stay or go community retreat. And I will still be pretty high and full off of all of the magic coming off of that. So, with that covered, let's get back to our episode and start diving into these seven surprises that have unfolded for me in the last six years. So, number one is that I never thought I was going to keep my house. So let me give you all a little bit of like backstory on this one. When I decided to get divorced, y'all, I was a stay-at-home mom. I had been for 10 years. Prior to that, no work experience. Like beyond when we lived back in Oakland and my ex-husband and I were first married, like I worked for a staging company watering their plants. I worked as an assistant for a glass fusing artist, you know, doing her work there. But I, no resume, y'all. My resume would have looked like, you know, graduated from college and those two jobs, and then nothing for the last 10 years of my life. Okay. So no work experience, no, I mean, yes, I had a degree, but no work experience with that degree. And I honestly just had accepted that there was going to be no way, like financially, logistically, that I would be able to keep our house and make a monthly mortgage payment on it. Okay. And when I say I'd finally accepted that, let me just be clear, that was a process, y'all. Like there was a lot of grieving and coaching. My best friend at the time, Kelly, she was going through coach training, her coaching and helping me rewrite that story in my head, right? And as we were rewriting that story and as I was processing through that grief, I started to, you know, look into other options. So I was touring homes that were over in a different school district. I was had my finger kind of on the pulse around like what are the local rentals? I mean, I had even started looking at, okay, if I want to buy this home in this other neighborhood, what do I need? I needed to have six months of proven income for them to let me buy a new home. So I was talking to my attorney about negotiating and seeing if we could get him to pay child support ahead of time so that I would be able to like move into a home. It was a lot, y'all. Okay. And so by the time we went into mediation, which I believe was in July. So just to give you guys, I love giving you guys time frames to just kind of help you keep digesting and understanding what divorces can look like. I'd filed February 14th of that year. We hadn't been able to get temporary orders until like May, where he actually moved out of the home. And then I believe it was in July that we went to mediation. And because we each had our own attorneys, mediation looked like, you know, showing up. Me and my attorney are sitting in one room, him and his attorney are sitting in the other room. And we have a mediator going back and forth between the rooms. And we ended up staying in mediation that day for around 11 hours. So it was an entire day of sitting in that room. I mean, y'all. Ah, it was, it was a lot. Um, my attorney at her computer, you know, calculating up all the different things. We're working out our custody arrangement. We're trying to work out the settlement on the different, you know, allocation of the assets between the two of us, just getting like piece by piece by piece mediated out that day. And as we're doing it, you know, we're starting, especially towards the end, to get into like a pretty like the stickiest point, which was that um my ex-husband really wanted 50-50 custody. And I just really, you know, prior to that, our parenting style, I was a stay-at-home mom. He worked all the time. I was like, you literally have never had the kids stay overnight with you, like before we started getting divorced. Like that was not a thing. Um, and so I was really pushing for us not doing that. And um, as we're going through the mediation, it was a lot of me just having to like breathe and trust my attorney, which I had an incredible attorney, although she was very difficult for me because she did not baby me. She was the perfect person for me to have because she saw very clearly that if she at all let me have the reins, I was going to screw myself over. So she just like took the reins, took care of things. But we're getting to the end of the night and we're really stuck on this point, right? And I'm really like, no, I'm not giving in. We're not doing this. And thank goodness, y'all. And this is when I said, this is one of the miraculous moments that came up for me in my journey, was that as we're discussing, all of a sudden, this new idea comes out of nowhere. Literally, y'all. We had never, ever, ever discussed this. This was such a pie-in-the-sky idea that I would never have dreamed it would happen. But the idea gets introduced that, like, okay, look, logistically, if you guys don't settle the custody now, he's probably going to keep reopening the custody and bringing you back to court over the years ahead. And, you know, my attorney was really worried for me because she knew I was a stay-at-home mom. I did not have a job. She was so, y'all, I'll talk about it later. She was very like, you need to get work. What are you going to do? Um, but we're sitting there talking. She and me, the mediator is kind of just saying, like, look, what I'm picking up on his side is he's gonna keep bringing you back to court as many times as it takes for him to get 50-50 custody. And so instead, this idea emerges of like, okay, well, what if we ask him to pay off the house and give you the house in the divorce settlement? And it was like, I remember the feeling in the room becoming electric. All of us like kind of paused and looked at each other and were like, what? Like, and everybody got really excited. Like, all of us were like, oh my God, this would be amazing. This would put you up, this would set you up for like such a great position. This would be phenomenal. Like, okay, let's try that, you know? And so we sent that back over. We had a couple more back and forths, and ultimately that evening, it ended in like we go from this terrific high of, okay, maybe this is gonna happen. This would be amazing, like, talk about best case scenario for me. And then um, them sending back, like they wanted to go back to the drawing board and start where we'd started, like earlier that day. And my attorney had us walk out. Like, she didn't even ask my opinion. She just turned to the mediator and was like, we'll see them in court. And the mediator left. She didn't ask my opinion. She didn't ask my choice. Like, that was just decided. And I could tell she was frustrated and we left. And she was like, We'll talk about it later. And I called my sister on the phone, bawling, because I was like, Oh my God, I thought this amazing thing was gonna happen, and now it looks like we're going to court. And the next morning, y'all, we received an email from my at the time husband's attorney saying they had agreed that the custody was gonna be uh the way we had restructured it, um, to more of like, I think I ended up with like 53 and he had 47%, and that he was going to pay off our home and give it to me in the divorce settlement. And y'all talk about a moment of total and utter unexpected, like miraculous point in my journey of that experience. And it was absolutely a moment for me of realizing, whoa, I may think I know how things are gonna go in this process. I may think my how my life's gonna unfold, how divorce is gonna unfold, but ultimately I don't. And to stay open to possibilities, to stay, I now tell my clients the way I describe it is like, yes, we come up with a plan, yes, we have things in place, but we stay light on our feet and we stay open to whatever else the universe might be willing to send in. So, my takeaway for y'all, because on each and every one of these seven things, I'm gonna have the thing that was unexpected, and then at the end, I'm gonna share my takeaway. My takeaway for this one for y'all is that even when it looks impossible on paper, just keep trusting yourself and moving forward because I truly believe that the universe, your soul, like it knows what's meant to be yours even before you do. And if I hadn't just kept moving forward and trusting, so much of the divorce process for me was like a huge exercise in trust. I did not know the how. I did not know how things were gonna work out. I was scrambling over those nine months to try and figure out like what I was gonna do for work. And when this landed in the way it did, it was like this huge, amazing relief of, oh my God, okay, I've got some time now. So know that even though your brain may be saying, ah, this is impossible on paper, I don't know how this is gonna work. Stay open to the miraculous. Second unexpected thing for my list is I never thought I'd be in debt and still trying to figure out money six years out. So, y'all, this one is tender. It is something that I have carried the most personal shame and frustration around that I've really held pretty, pretty close to my chest and pretty close to my heart in the process of all of this journey, which, you know, my business coach is helping me so much with understanding just like what I was faced with. And so this is kind of my first opportunity to start bringing more of this work into the podcast and talking about it. Because, y'all, you don't just go from being a stay-at-home mom with no financial experience whatsoever to somehow like financially knowing how to do all of these pieces. It's something you have to learn. And it has taken me time, y'all, and it still is. I'm still deeply in the middle of this process. And the very optimistic, like glass half-ful part of me truly believed that once I found coaching, I was just gonna like become a coach and be making a million dollars a year by like year two. And spoiler, that did not happen, y'all. So let me walk you back a little bit through financially where I was kind of starting at. So one of the things that is I I actually don't stress about it anymore, and I kind of made peace with it right off the bat, but I now think like, God, the fucking patriarchy. Uh, there is a cap on child support in Texas. So when I was going through my divorce, my attorney notified me that like, even though at the time my husband was pulling in, you know, 250 to 300K from his work and bonuses from investment banking, they have a cap on how much he would have to pay in child support. And so I came out of the settlement on my divorce with getting 2,000, around $2,700 a month in child support. That is like $33K a year. And I have no job, y'all. Now, thankfully, as y'all know from my first one, I unexpectedly got a paid-off house in my divorce, which was huge. And I got the settlement from the divorce, which I want to acknowledge all of that is like a huge piece of what I would definitely label as like my white privilege of being married to a white man that made a bunch of money. And so I got to come out of my divorce with money that I could survive off of. And damn do I, you know, absolutely acknowledge that. And also, as you guys will see, just because you get a bunch of money from your divorce does not mean you know how to manage that money or you know how to continue making money. So a little bit later, one of my other um items in the list, I'll dive into more fully, like what it looked like when I was trying to figure out that in the my career in the beginning. But once I got into coaching, you know, there was a moment where my business was really picking up and I'd hit my goal of making 10K a month, because I had 10 one-on-one clients at the time and things were going really well. And then boom, y'all, my family stuff exploded. Those of you that have listened to the podcast know. And I had to really pull back in again over these. I would really say over the last, it's been six years now. So probably the first three to four years, y'all, I was trying to build a business. I was investing in my healing massively. Like I was coaching myself so much. I was investing my money in coaches to coach me in learning um skills. I did a whole year after all the stuff fell out with my family, where I went to work with a therapist every single week doing brain spotting like that was another huge investment in myself. And I just through all of it though, even though the money piece wasn't like the how of the money piece wasn't making sense, I just kept showing up and trying to do the next thing that made sense to me. And where that led me, y'all, is eventually needing a couple of years ago, I actually took the equity out of my house. I had some big home repairs that needed to be done. And I used that money at that time, especially because this was after my repressed memory had come back, and just put my dad in prison testifying at his trial. And I just needed to be knowing like, okay, there's money, I'm gonna be okay, and I've got to resource some. And then on top of that, even with that, ending up going into debt. So I was like really trying to trust. Myself and invest in myself while the money piece was not entirely making sense and trying to build a business out of all of this. And I will say clearly, y'all, as of right now, I am still in the middle of figuring these pieces out. Thankfully, in the last, really, it's been in the last year and a half as I started the podcast and then really anchoring in to the stability that's come through being with my partner Joe and not, I look back, y'all, and I'm like, ooh, a lot of what was destabilizing and making it difficult for me to make some real strides in my business was yes, the instability with my family, but also, as I'm gonna talk about a little later, dating a partner that was really unhealthy for me. But now, in the last year and a half, is when I've really started to see the strides coming through, some of the payoff of all of the investment I was making. Because here's something that they don't tell you when you become an entrepreneur, which I it's not like I even went to an entrepreneur class, y'all. Yeah, I've just been figuring this out like as I go. But if you're gonna be an entrepreneur, you are the heart of the business. So you have to invest in you. You have to be pouring investment into yourself. And that's really what the first three to four years were for me. And not giving up on this dream, this dream that what I was passionate about, the skills I had with coaching, the differences I was making in my clients' lives, that they were worth it, that they were worth continuing to keep going. Um, but something that my business coach has really been helping give me perspective on. So earlier this year is when I started working with her. And it was very humbling for me to have to talk to somebody about my finances, to be like, you know, I mean, the world just holds up this standard of like, oh, you had, you know, you had all this money coming off of your divorce, you had your house paid off. Like, surely you should not be where you are financially. And what she gave me the perspective on is she was like, whoa, B, hold up a second. Like, I get it. You dreamed you'd like be making a million dollars a year and be one of these coaches that goes from like, you know, nothing to that within like two years, which side note, y'all. I've also been learning as I've watched that that that has its own entire other like struggle, like everything has its 50-50. But she gave me the perspective of being like, wow, you could have gone and done it, you know, gone and gotten a career or gone and started working somewhere else and kind of chosen a route that might have been more safe for you financially. But what you did instead is you bet on yourself. And she was telling me about how, you know, there are men who start companies who have like millions of dollars that they invest in those companies and they are in the red for, you know, five to 10 of the first years of those companies. So giving me some perspective on like, why did I expect to have it all figured out? Why did I think I was just gonna be able to launch and have everything work, um, and actually helping me see that the amount I'm in debt, that the moves I had to make to keep my business going, to keep showing up for me. And her take, she's like, I think it was the best move you could have made. And I think you're ready to like watch it all build and take off from here, which I have seen this year. Like as I have become more intentionally strategic financially, right, y'all, of going, okay, yes, it feels really good to just give and give and give and give everything away. But also I need to provide and think of the long term and making sure that I have the financial support to keep this work going for many years to come, right? I it's now really become like my heart and soul, and it's something I want to leave in the world long after I am gone. And to do that, it takes, you know, building much deeper systems and roots. Um, but the the what I realized, y'all, is that I came out of it thinking like, I'm just gonna, this was like a common thing, like, I'm just gonna hit a home run straight off the gate. And what I've learned is it takes time to build the new. And I will say, this is what I will say for all of y'all. You know, I did hear on a recent podcast, they were like, if you are going to get divorced, you need to get advice from an attorney, an accountant, and a realtor. And y'all, I got advice from an attorney, but I did not go talk to an accountant and a realtor. And maybe if I had done those things, I would be in a different position than I am financially at the moment, which is why I'm definitely dropping this here for all of y'all. But at the same time, this has been my path. And even though financial security is a place that's still definitely where a lot of my growth and a lot of my work is right now, it is honestly one of the biggest kind of last areas that I feel like I'm working on to feel truly like good and settled in, managing and supporting myself in. Whereas there are a lot of other areas in my life that feel really solidly locked in. So it's also understanding that there are all these different areas that you're going to be working on post-divorce. And just because you don't have the ideal in all of them doesn't mean that there wasn't massive progress made. I've made so much progress. I mean, as you guys all know, I tended to spend a lot of my time in the areas that I love the most, which were my relationship work and my emotional self-healing work. And I definitely spent a ton of my time around becoming a coach. I've invested thousands and thousands of hours in becoming a coach, not even in becoming it, in just coaching, right? I've coached and coached and coached, and that's made me the coach I am now. And now this is that final piece of the finances. But it was one of those things when I was doing the list where I was like, oh yeah, no, I definitely did not think that six years out, I was still gonna be trying to figure out finances. And this is something that I am excited to hopefully be able to bring more of to the podcast because I'm seeing more and more in the world how much we as women are not taught financial ideas. We're not taught financial principles. I mean, my son, who's 15 right now, is already talking about the stock market, learning about the stock market, talking about investing. And I was like, at 15, I was like writing the guy I liked last name with mine, hoping that we were gonna get married. Like no one was talking to me about money and my financial future. So the takeaway from this one is that healing and rebuilding post-divorce, especially, y'all, if you do not have a career, if you are a stay-at-home mom, if you are gonna be figuring out how you're gonna provide for yourself going forward, that takes time. And money is absolutely a part of that. And to, I guess, kind of in sharing this part of me to get to be an example of how like it gets it, it can be messy and you're gonna find your way through it. And being really gentle with yourselves when you start getting hard on yourselves with like, I am behind or I'm not doing it right. I have been so hard on myself over the last few years when it was like the money is going down, you know, that there's less money coming in than there is going out. And I realize now, thanks to my business coach, that's because I had to invest so much in myself and my future and building out those foundations that now that I have them built, we're finally getting to see. Now I just get to optimize and learn how to um really bring in that money and then also like learn how to watch the money coming in, the money going out, all of those pieces. Now, the third thing on my list is I never thought I'd fall in love with my body in the way I have or with sex and intimacy. This may surprise many of you because I talk about this pretty openly, pretty freely on the podcast and definitely in the community. But I used to think that physical touch was my like lowest love language. Okay. I didn't really like being touched in my marriage. Um, I think I've talked before how like sex was kind of a band-aid. It was a place to kind of like I enjoyed sex once I got into it, but I also looked back and I was very dissociated. I wasn't actually in my body. And on top of that, I grew up in a very strict Mormon home, especially around modesty, and where, you know, there was no talk about sex being pleasurable or really, you know, no deep analysis around like women's pleasure and what it's gonna be like. I mean, my mom definitely shared with me when I was getting married that there was something called a clitoris, um, and maybe showed me some images, and they definitely showed me a book that was about sex when I was old enough to get the sex talk, but nothing in the realm of like pleasure. And definitely um, once I got divorced and over the last six years, looking back, I did not know my own body at all. Did not know what makes it feel pleasurable, did not know how it worked. And I really didn't feel sexy or confident in my body. I knew um growing up, I knew that I was, you know, I have definitely have pretty privilege. Um, and I knew that because my mom would talk about it a lot, other people in my community would mention it, but that that's very different than actually feeling confident and sexy in your own body. But post-divorce, y'all, whole new chapter. Okay. And I I hoped for that a little. You know, I will say I didn't expect it, but I did hope. I was eager in this area. I was like, I want to understand this. I loved dating when I was younger, I loved connecting in with partners when I'd been in high school. That was one of the things that like brought me a lot of joy. I loved flirting, all of that. So I was looking forward to this. And looking back now, each partner that I dated over those six years really brought, you know, as I experienced and had just experiences, y'all. I did not have hardly any experience. I got married when I was 19. I'd never had sex before. I turned 19. The most I'd ever done, y'all, was French kiss. I'd never even heavy petted before I was married. Is that even what they call it anymore? God, that makes me sound so Mormon. So coming off of that, I got to start dating partners. I got to start experiencing things. I read books. I got to explore my own sexuality. I now had a space in my own home where I could, you know, freely experience my body. Um, I got to stop wearing my garments in Mormonism, which means I got to start actually seeing my body naked. It's so weird. I talked about that this week in the community that, like, holy shit, y'all, I hadn't seen my body naked and really like seen it and existed in it post getting divorced. Because once you get married as a Mormon, you have to wear garments. If you're, you know, the top of the top, most uh following the rules Mormon, which I was. So coming out of that over those six years, y'all, oh my God, have I now become so much more in love and feel so much more empowered in my body. Like truly, truly in love with myself in a way I never knew was possible. Um, something that's really shown me that this year too is I think with like kind of perhaps being moving into maybe pre-menopause, I've put on weight that my body has never held before. I've always had like a very, very thin body, which of course was very celebrated and talked about while I was growing up. But in the last three, four years, working with my personal trainer, I've really been trying to gain weight because I want to be more healthy, a healthy weight, not just the underweight. When I get stressed, I food restrict. Like that's that's very common for those of us with trauma that we use food in certain ways to kind of fill in control. But this year, I've gained weight and my body has changed, like the way I see it. And it's been so beautiful to watch me being like, oh my God, like I love these thighs, I love this butt, I love this belly pooch. Like that has come out of these six years of really getting to know my body, getting to love my body as mine. And then also, along with all of that body love, has been getting to discover that I really freaking love sex and intimacy and pleasure. It is like top three, probably top one, probably my favorite thing about being a human, especially with a partner that I am so turned on by and totally into is great sex, great intimacy, getting to connect in those ways that is just beyond anything that words can express. And that was something that I did not expect. I did not think that I would fall in love to this extent with my body, or that I would be so into intimacy and sex and physical touch. That is not how I saw myself. That was not what I thought of myself. So, my takeaway on this one, y'all, is understanding that if you come from an experience like that, your body is not broken. Like, I thought that. I really thought that about myself. And that was a thing also that, like, even in the years post when I was dating other guys, I still thought, you know, I before meeting my partner Joe, I could not orgasm with a partner. Like I thought it was really difficult for me to orgasm with partners, and I internalized that and thought that was me. No, it just turns out I did I had partners that did not know what the fuck they were doing. I thought I couldn't orgasm for moral sex. Nope. Turns out that's a lie too. So take away your body is not broken. Boy, does your pleasure matter, especially for those of you that might be like me, that when I was married and kind of concerned divorce, I was like, man, like this area really seems to be a big deal to me, and I'm not feeling it. In that, you know, I wanted more there. I wanted to feel more there, even if I didn't understand what that more was going to look like. And the final takeaway on this, too, is that it's never too late to fall in love with yourself and your body and to completely reimagine and have a totally different um relationship with your body, with intimacy, and with pleasure. Now, fourth thing on my list, and this one is a hard one, y'all, is that I never thought I would end up dating and being in a relationship with someone that was worse than my ex-husband. So I've mentioned this a couple of times in and out on the podcast, but um I really think it's been a couple years now since I've been in that relationship. And the more that I get distanced from that relationship, the more that I look back and go, whoa, whoa, be that relationship was really emotionally and verbally abusive in ways that you were not understanding or fully admitting to yourself. Um, and looking back on that relationship, you know, a big piece of it too was that the partner that I was dating definitely had a drinking problem. And being a Mormon girl that really had not been around alcohol at all. Um, plus, I really didn't explore drinking a lot post my divorce. That was just drinking's really tough for me. I always feel like really awful the next day. I get bad hangovers, so it's never really stuck. But I remember the shock one time. Um, so this was the year two where I was coming, everything was happening with my family. So I'm meeting every week with my therapist, we're brain spotting together. And I remember so distinctly the week where I'm talking about kind of what's happening in my relationship. And she says, you know, do you think you might be a high-functioning alcoholic? And I literally did not know what she was talking about. Like, this is the first time we had brought up alcoholism. And I was like, I have no idea what you were talking about. What do you mean? And she was able to kind of help me see, like, hey, I think because you've never really been around alcohol and your Mormon background, you may be missing this really important uh aspect of your relationship. And I remember that being like a really painful wake-up call because y'all, who wants to leave the, you know, which I'm gonna have an episode coming out soon around this topic around like the good guy, right? Who wants to divorce the quote good guy? Because in a lot of ways, my ex-husband like fit the good guy role. Like he was not an alcoholic, he did not have any drug addictions, he wasn't, you know, verbally um abusing me, calling me names, or um swearing at me, none of that, right? So, in a lot of ways, like the good guy, who wants to divorce the good guy and then be sitting on your therapist's couch and find out you're dating a high-functioning alcoholic? Nobody wants that. Y'all, nobody wants that. And that was a tough process. We ended up, you know, I we ended up in total dating for a year. And really, that process, you know, we we ended up breaking up, I would say, about six months in and then getting back together for another six months, and over the six months, breaking up another couple of times in between there and me continuing to go back. He would say incredibly hurtful things. He would send very manipulative texts. And honestly, y'all, I realize now that what had happened prior to that in my dating experiences is I'd only dated most of the guys that I'd met for like three months tops. Like it was just kind of a thing. I would, I would meet a guy, we would date, and like at the three-month mark, we would end up breaking up. And looking back, um a lot of that was because I was dating partners that were more avoidance, and so they would end it. In all of those instances, they ended it. But this was the first time I dated a partner that was more codependent than me. And that made it really, really difficult. It was my first experience with having to coming off of my divorce. I would say my divorce was a good example of having to divorce someone who was using those same techniques of um, you know, not as verbally violent, but still using techniques of manipulating and making you feel bad and guilting you and defining you to get you to stay in the relationship. And this was my first run-in with that post-divorce. And it took me an entire year to finally get out of that. And Quinn really watched me go through a lot of that. I think we actually, on one of our episodes where we're in together, she was the one who called me on it and was like, no, no, no, babe. She like stopped me in the middle of the episode and was like, it was really bad. Do you? I know you don't remember. It was really, really bad. So um, another aspect of being in this relationship that I realized post all of it, kind of in the post-mortem, once you finally get out, was like, oh, I can get sucked into staying in a relationship where the sex is really good, even if the rest of the dynamics aren't. Um, and that was, you know, an unintended piece of like, as I began to realize, and with each partner, I said, like my intimacy, my ability to be present in sex, my ability to enjoy sex got better and better. And so with this partner, it was the best I'd ever had sex wise yet, which is like so hilarious because I think of where my intimacy and pleasure is now. And I'm like, it's not even in the same park, y'all. We're talking about like little league. But when you're coming from, you know, I don't know, really bad, like little league seems like a big deal. Like we're actually on a team now. We actually have uniforms. I don't know. Um, but that was a big deal. It it kept me in it. The, and of course it did. It also harkens back into my marriage of sex was a band-aid that I used in my marriage as well. It was a coping mechanism, a way to like make things feel better, get through, put a band-aid on it, get over it. So this was something that I would not have expected was gonna happen to me, especially with like everything I know as a coach, everything I'm teaching my clients. Granted, this was before I really like I look at where I was, this was back in like 2022 time frame. And I can see how much like I've grown a ton as a coach since then. And also, as even as I say that, I'm like, you can still be a really great coach. You can be teaching other people what you are struggling to apply in your own life, because when you're the one in the pool, that's what we call it in coaching, it's always harder when it's your own life. And that's why you want to always have a coach on the outside of the pool that's able to be like, hey, look at that, because you're the one in the pool. So I learned from this experience, y'all. Oh, did I learn by hard experience? Because I really did watch our relationship have a massive impact on my mental health, on my ability to show up in my work. My work really shut down to like a trickle during this time because I was just so consumed with all of the trauma in the relationship, everything going on with my family, trying to heal from things on my own as well. But boy, did I learn that like sexual chemistry just is not enough, that emotional and intellectual equality matter. Like I knew when I started dating this person, they weren't really on the level that I needed in a partner, but I kind of got swept up in all of the feelings. And it felt so good, especially if you're someone coming off of a marriage where you're maybe with someone who's a little bit more narcissistic and doesn't adore you and want to be with you. And then you end up with your first codependent that makes it seem like you are the son, their entire world, it can be very difficult to get out of that. So, takeaway on this one is dating after divorce does not mean you will always get it right every single time. But each experience is a mirror and will teach you more about yourself. And the mantra that helped me not completely lose myself in all of that was my dedication to ultimately like myself first and the whole like I follow the light, not the relationship. And so, even though this partner really like was gunning for, I think deep down thought we were gonna get married, thought this was gonna be it. I always knew deep down I was not gonna be marrying this person because I had already decided, like, I am not settling. And in fact, honestly, y'all coming off of my divorce, I was very like, I'm not getting married again. And thank goodness in some ways, because that really having that boundary, that line of like, no, no, no, is what helped me not end up in a second marriage where I find out, you know, I realize a couple years later, like, oh shit, and now I have to get out of it again, right? Yes, it was a year of dating, but it was just a year of dating. It wasn't a whole second marriage. So using that mantra of I follow the light, not the relationship, giving yourself grace, you are going to not always get it right in these relationships that you're experiencing post-divorce, and that your peace is what's important, most important, that that's what you come back to. Fifth item on the list, this is one of my favorites, y'all. I never thought I would go to Burning Man. Yes, yes, you all. I went from Mormon housewife to the playa. This experience was massive for my individuation process, um, which I would say was a huge piece of these years post-divorce is just getting to learn. I I honestly feel like so much of my I didn't have an individuation process when I was growing up, when I was in high school, I didn't get to learn who I was because my religion and my mother contracted that so heavily. And um this is where I got to learn who I am. And how do you do that? You do that by trying things and figuring out, oh, I like this or I don't like this, or I don't like that, and I like this instead. Bernie Man was a huge send for me. Uh it was, you know, me going and doing something that was really pretty much on my own. I got all of my stuff. I had my coach friend that I had never met in person. She was the one that connected me into the camp and got me into it, helped me get tickets and everything. But other than that, this was a massive send of me flying out by myself, ordering, getting all of the things, showing up to meet her for the first time in person, being in a camp with where I knew no one else but her, got to meet her husband and her daughter as well, which was really special. Um, and I went honestly seeking community. I at that point in my journey was feeling really, really lonely out here in the burbs, you know, in the Dallas suburbs, just feeling like, where are my people? I don't have people that I can relate to that get me. And I got such a mind-blowing expansion there. I got to see how strong I am, how much I can show up for myself, how much, I mean, y'all, I remember one night, like 3 a.m., leaving a group of people and having to bike my bike back across the playa in the dark. And we're talking like far, far, far. It's so much bigger than you think, all the way back to find my town all by myself because everybody else wanted to stay out. And I knew I needed to go home and sleep. I wasn't feeling like I wanted to stay out any longer. And even stopping at one point in the middle of the playa and just crying, just standing there crying in the dark on the playa. Um, and then ultimately getting myself home and all these highs and lows that really showed me like I will not abandon myself. And I want this to, I'm I'm sharing this here because I'm like, what this showed me, and it's just one, it's just one experience, but I have had so many experiences over the last six years that I never imagined I would have that came out of saying yes to my soul, saying, I'm gonna embark on this journey with me, it's gonna be up and down, it's gonna be all over the place, but I'm here for it. And the takeaway I want out of this one is that there are experiences waiting for you on the other side of divorce that would have never happened otherwise, y'all. There's there's no way. If I had stayed married, there's no way I would have ever gone to Burning Man. Are you kidding me? No, no, no, no, no. So even post-divorce, too, I want you to say yes to what your soul is curious about. Because in this instance, I was super curious about this. At the time, I was like, I knew I needed community. I wanted to meet other people, I wanted to expand my horizons. And my friend at the time was like, you should come to the burn. And it was a, I think I even decided to go, like it was a month or a month and a half before the burn was happening. So I didn't even have that much time. It was a last minute thing. It was like, let's go send it kind of moment. And I did. And honestly, I really feel like the burn was what opened a portal for me. It really did feel like it, of jumping timelines. Because once I came back from that, um, I just I had a few other experiences where I got really clear on what I was wanting. And it was at the end of that year. So I went to the burn in the beginning of September of 2023. And come that fall, I figured out I had CPTSD and decided like I'm done dating anybody and everybody that's interested in me. Like that period of my journey is over. I want to lock in. I want to show up for myself and really create and put into the out into the world the things that I'm most passionate about. I would start my podcast on January 2024 and I would meet my partner Joe a week later. That is how crazy it was for opening me to uh different horizons and to getting really clear on what I wanted most for myself. Okay, the sixth thing I did not think would happen post-divorce that was unexpected is I never thought I would have a podcast, an online community, and work that I am this passionate about and in love with. So to take you guys back, uh way, way back to the very, you know, beginning when I was going through my divorce, y'all, I really did not, when I filed for divorce in February, I did not know what I was gonna do for work. And as I was reading through my journal entries, I saw like at the time, I was like, well, maybe I'll be a ghostwriter. Like I was trying to create up a website to do that because I knew I wanted to be able to be home and there for my kids. But I didn't, I didn't know what I was really gonna do. Um, I even had my attorney like kind of freaking out for me, uh, being like, girly, what are we gonna do? Uh, what what are you gonna do? What are you gonna do? And I just didn't have really a good, clear idea yet of what I was gonna do, especially in the beginning. I even remember her being like, maybe you should go teach people English online. Like, there's some, there's stuff you can do, like find it. Um, and I just honestly kind of intuitively just felt like I'm gonna figure it out. Um, and I knew that I had a little bit of, you know, cushion for sure with um the money that I was gonna have coming out of the divorce. That doesn't mean though, that other people weren't scared for me. So as I'm going through the divorce process, though, as I mentioned earlier, my best friend Kelly was going through coach training. And she coached me through the process of my divorce. And that was where I really it just I caught it. I caught the bug. I was like, oh my God, this is what I'm passionate about. This is what I want to do. And right as my divorce was finalized, I entered coach training, um, which I would end up doing coach training was an entire year. But even then, y'all, I didn't know where that was going to take me. Like, I knew that the tool I was learning, the way of managing your mind, of being able to see the difference between your thoughts and your feelings, between facts and your thoughts, was huge. But I didn't exactly know, you know, what, especially going through coach training, like what am I gonna coach on? Who, who am I interested in coaching? Um, and I also had, you know, was when I was looking at my journal entries, it was so neat to see. No joke, I'll have to maybe share this in an episode in the future sometime, but I found an entry that was honestly, you guys, the very first time someone guided me into feeling in my body for the first time. So it was my best friend Kelly in the journal entry leading up to it. I was just really spinning and so much painful, painful self-hatred and dread and doubt and just all of that. And and when I look at the entry, I'm like, oh, I'm really trying to run away and escape this fear and depression in my body. And instead, she guided me straight to it, as I've done on this podcast with that um episode I mentioned a couple episodes back, the meditation one, where I help guide you like actually down into feeling sensation in your body. And it's so magical to see, you know, from a journal entry written like six years ago, how life-changing that was in that moment. And I was like, whoa, this is magical. This makes a real difference, you know, as I stayed with that depression, that overwhelm in my body, it all of a sudden released it, you know, hit this massive crescendo and peak. And then all of a sudden it released and it flowed out. And I learned, like, oh, I can feel and I'm not gonna die. So I was having all of these big moments like this, big aha moments going through the divorce. And then as I finish, I go into coach training. Once I'm in coach training, though, I was not like, you know, I'm gonna do, I'm gonna coach women on divorce. In fact, I think I remember somebody mentioning or like recommending, you know, oh, since you've been through this, you might be good at coaching it. And I was like, no, I don't, I don't think I want to do that at all. And it just kind of found me. And I think I've mentioned this on the podcast that actually where I started was coaching couples. I thought maybe I was gonna, you know, change the way we do couples therapy. And it was through that process that I realized I did not enjoy working with men that were being dragged into, you know, coaching and were not interested in changing. And even if they were changing, it was coming more from a perspective of like, well, my wife's unhappy, so I need to be doing this. I wanted to work with the women that were like hungry for what I had to teach them. But even then, y'all, I did not know that I would develop the kind of strong voice that I have now and the passion that I have for this work, for it to become something that is like, it feels like soul work to me. Um, I definitely did not expect that when I filed for divorce. Um, I just knew things were not good in my marriage, and that needed to change. But I could never have dreamed that it would lead to me, you know, leading and creating hopefully a movement that is changing the way we think about divorce and that is helping women just like me six years ago go through that process very, very differently. Also, an aspect of this that I could never have imagined back then was that not only is it my work, but it is also my art. That's something I've been like really softening and opening to more lately, is understanding and realizing that like when I'm recording a podcast, I am not just doing work, I am creating, I am doing art, I am expressing a part of my soul, my connection with the divine, my ways of seeing the world, and I'm putting it out into the world, and then it's getting to connect and impact those of you listening, right? And I look back now, and what I can see is that this desire to create was like, I think it was always in me growing up. It was just so, it had to be so compressed into such a tiny box and only channeled into the avenues that it was allowed to be, the prescribed ones, right? I could start an Etsy shop when I was married to my husband. I could go get horses and I could work my horses, or um there was a prescribed area arena that I was allowed to play in. And I when I look back, I did try as much as possible to play in that. I, you know, did a lot in my church callings. I was super devoted there, super connected in with the things that I was doing at that time. But the difference, y'all, was that it wasn't truly like coming from that deepest part of myself in a way that honestly back then I would never have even known was possible, that I know now on the realm of like passion, like something I am truly, truly passionate about. And although I always had it in me, divorce was what opened the door for me. So, my takeaway on this one is understanding that you don't have to lose your purpose in divorce. I think so many women maybe see it that way, or we've been trained to see it that way, um, or we fear it that way. When my experience has been that instead, divorce is what helped me discover my purpose. And really, honestly, it it was always kind of there in the background, wanting to be expressed, but I had to have a bigger arena for it. I had to have more room, more space to be able to follow that passion. So when you're thinking about divorce, I want you to let yourself think about it in the framework of it being a doorway to create what you wish had existed for you as well. And I've seen this happening with a lot of women in my community, with my one-on-one clients, where I watch them post-working, post-making the decision, opening to more of themselves and bringing really their gifts and perhaps their passions or, you know, whatever it is they're meant to leave in the world through post-making this decision. So contrary to it making your life smaller, it can expand it in ways that you would never imagine, especially, I think, when it comes to your personal passions, the things that you want to leave as lasting legacies in the world once you're gone. Now, my seventh and final area that I did not expect, um, and that has been really, really big for me. I was actually, you know, as I was doing this episode earlier, and you know, I was mentioning that like in the finance area, that's a little still like very much in flux, and there's a lot of growth still happening there. But especially in these last two areas, right, in finding my passion and really having work that feels like art and that fills my soul, this last one as well feels like an area that I've devoted a lot of attention to that is really, really clicking and grounded right now in my life, which is that I never thought that I would live with a partner again, um, especially with my kids. I did not get divorced thinking, I was not one of those people who thought, like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna meet somebody and we're gonna, you know, be together or we're gonna get married and we're gonna raise my kids together. And especially along with that idea of getting married to someone, I just never thought I would feel the desire to be married to someone again. Coming out of divorce, that was very, very clear for me. Going through all of my dating, that like never really changed until now, y'all. So let me dive into this a little bit with you about how much of this has like caught me by surprise. I think a lot of us, when we have come from marriages that had a lot of trauma, we pin that on the marriage. And we come out of it with a really bad taste in our mouth around marriage, around being in partnership. I especially had a particular flavor of not liking parenting my children with somebody else around. Um, I had felt really um criticized and misunderstood when I was parenting in my marriage previously. And so having another adult around when I was parenting just did not feel good. I didn't, and you know, I really didn't have to do that. I had like three years post my divorce where I specifically made sure that I kept, you know, anybody I loved and my motherhood completely separate. They were two different worlds that I existed in, you know, when I was with my kids, I was with my kids. Um, and when I was not with them, that's when I had the space to be meeting with partners that I was dating and exploring that part of my life. But the two did not meet until I dated the individual that I mentioned earlier, just the way we ended up meeting our kids and um him, my kids knew him before we really started dating. So I got to experience a little bit there what it was like, not a little bit, quite a bit actually, to kind of try to do life where we were more together, where I was spending time with him and my kids at the same time. We even went on multiple trips with like all of our kids together. Um, and honestly, that really just drove home for me again, like, nope, this is not gonna be a fit for me. This is too much for my nervous system to have a person around while I'm with my children and to also like be around their children at the same time. And I honestly all I just loved raising my kids solo. It was easier for me to not have to deal with negotiating parenting with another person, with feeling a lot of resentment and frustration that the other person wasn't maybe showing up or um supporting or engaging in the ways that I needed them to. So I felt a lot of relief coming out of divorce that I never had to be married again and I could parent my kids separate from a partner. But then this last year, 2024, I met Joe. And y'all, it just evolved so naturally for us. I was talking with him yesterday in the car about how at the time I kind of had come off of that experience with that other partner, and I'd on my list of kind of like, what am I looking for? I'd written, like, okay, I'm definitely not looking to date any guy that has kids, and I don't want to date any guy who hasn't had kids. You know, because if he hasn't had kids, he probably wants to have kids, and I don't want to have any more kids. And if he has kids, I don't want to raise his kids. So at the time, y'all, I was like, I don't know who is going to fit this spot. Like, I couldn't think of a partner that would be a fit in that area. Who do you know that, you know, hasn't had kids but doesn't want his own kids. And, you know, if they haven't had their own kids, then they're gonna, they may struggle being around your kids because they just, there's just a learning curve when you've raised children. Or if he has his own kids right, then I have to be a part of that. And I just don't have the bandwidth to do that. And then I met Joe. And it was like, oh, this is so perfect. I'd never thought of being with someone whose kids were already grown and no longer living with him. So check, he does not have children that live with him. Check he understands children and knows how to be around them because he's already had them himself. And check he doesn't want any more children. So that was like a beautiful kind of foundational baseline for us that I did not expect that when he showed up, it was like, oh my God, okay, universe, you do know what you're doing. And then as we started to build our connection, to be with each other, it just naturally unfolded, y'all, where he showed up in my life in a way that made life easier and better. And that was not something we created, like intentionally created or had to um make happen. It just was like, I don't know, you know, uh two puzzle pieces coming together. Like it just clicked and it fit. And actually, I found I had more resistance of having to get over my own thoughts around it. I remember Quinn having to coach me when I finally was like, oh, I think I actually like don't want him going home when he leaves. I think I actually want him to be here. Actually, life seems to be better when he's here. And that was a big contrast, y'all, because in that previous relationship, as the relationship went along, things actually got worse. Like things had been best in the beginning of the relationship. And then as we went along, the relationship became less and less stable, the dysregulation became greater. And actually, you know, when I'd be around him, I would feel by the end of it, like worse. And so for it to be tracking the other direction with somebody where I'm like, actually, I'm feeling safer and more safer, and I'm feeling better, and actually my life is going better, and I'm feeling more stable, and actually I'm feeling more regulated with this person. And now there was like a switch where it was like, ooh, I'm starting to feel kind of more dysregulated when he's away. Oh, y'all, there was some serious coaching and rewriting of the scripts and the story that I'd had to create in my brain to get out of that previous relationship to go, okay, wait a second. Maybe being with a partner that is safe and trustworthy and regulated and securely attached could actually be better for me than being on my own and raising my kids solo. And then, you know, when we did introduce my kids to him, once again, it just was so effortless. Joe has this really beautiful energy where he is not out to prove anything or convince anybody. I feel like he's he's just kind of beautifully um, we always talk about how he's the chill one in the family. So our dynamic, me and my kids, you know, remained what it was. And he's just kind of this support and this energy that's there in the space with us. Now, I mean, along with that, and I'll have to do an episode on this in the future because I do believe that where that had to shift things was in the dil in the relationship with my oldest son. Because in a lot of ways, and uh this is as I've been like looking back in hindsight, realizing, um, and I think I've talked about this a little bit on the podcast, that we were more emotionally enmeshed than I realized, which, you know, this is the whole, there's 50-50 every way, right? And in being a solo mom, that was what happened, even with all of my intentions and my coaching and my knowing about it. It's just what kind of happened. And so when Joe came into the picture and I was able to shift more of my connection and emotional support there, which that sounds really weird. Cause it, if you'd seen my relationship, I don't think you would have thought that that was like coming from my oldest son. But I look back now and I'm like, it just naturally was. Um, and him just kind of filling that role because it it's a role that's natural to him. There was shifts that had to happen, right? Um, my son had to kind of lose that role and then re-figure out like where his role is and who he wanted to be. And we found that that was best facilitated by him moving to his dad's house. Um, which I'm talking about this as like we, you know, I'll this is this will be something that I'll get to talk with him when he's much older and we've gone through all of this. Um, but it's something that I think I've realized looking back. And so there was growth and shifting that had to happen from this piece changing the way it did. But that's been a necessary part of really honestly, I think his growth as well. And I'm I'm having like so much deja vu right now that I've like already talked about this on the podcast. So if this is a repeat, just y'all indulge my ADHD brain at the moment, my neurodivergence that's like, I cannot keep track of everything I've ever said on the podcast. But that's reminding me so much of um a woman that I met at my gym that was talking about how she chose the route of not having a partner or, you know, having a relationship until her children were up and in college, she had three boys. And she was discussing with me when I'd been sharing about what's happening with my son that actually, you know, she felt like in some ways it had disadvantaged her oldest son because he had not made that shift out of kind of being the oldest, kind of in a parent role within that dynamic. And so even though it's been growing pains for sure for me and my son, um, I think it was very necessary. And I am hopeful too that this will allow him to not have, you know, that transition, transition kind of has to be made at some point. It's getting to be made now versus when he's older and in college or and this just comes back to like, y'all trusting our journeys and what shows up for us, how it unfolds. Because a year and a half ago, before I met Joe, if you guys had asked me, like, hey, are you gonna be living with someone that is gonna be like living with you and your kids permanently? Like you guys live together. And um although you're not moving towards marriage, like let me be clear, that is not where Joe and I are at because it's just not necessary. Like we have such a beautiful partnership in the way it is right now. But the differences that I actually feel for the first time in this whole journey in this process, I feel the the, I don't know if it'd be called the desire, but like the, oh, if I wanted to get married, this is for sure the person that I would want to do that with. And that is something that I just never thought was gonna be on the table again. And in fact, I I realize now I didn't even feel that for my husband when we got married. I couldn't have. We only knew each other from start to marriage three months. And so I I hardly knew that person that I just went and said, yes, let's go spend the rest of our lives together and let's go do the next 12 years. That now, as I've had the opportunity to actually date someone, because technically Joe and I are still dating, right? In dating for a year and a half, it's like, oh wow, you really do get to know more who that individual is, what uh really makes them tick. And I'm still obviously very aware that we are only in the first year and a half. Like that still feels super, super early for me. But absolutely, this next phase of my life, this last year and a half, and moving into this way of living, this way of creating um a different family dynamic here. Where, you know, I mean, Joe and me on nights when the boys are here, are my two younger boys, we try to do story time at night where we all, you know, cuddle in my bed and um we pick a word and everybody tells a story, some memory that they have using that word. And that's something I never dreamed I was gonna have. That was not something that I left thinking was gonna be a part of my future, and yet here it is. And I love it immensely. Um, I never thought I was gonna love having someone in my space all the time. That was something also last year that I was like worried about and digested. Even over like Christmas and the new year with him moving in, there was processing of the fear, right? What's gonna happen if this doesn't work out? What's gonna happen if this person has to leave, and just continuing to move towards where the light was leading me. And the light, y'all, is always that like deep inner knowing that like this feels like where the pieces, this feels like where I'm connected most to myself. So your takeaway on this one, y'all, is that your boundaries get to evolve. Your story about yourself post-divorce gets to evolve and change. And in fact, it will need to. You will need to rewrite that story many, many times over the process of your journey. I think this is honestly like welcome to life. If you want to do life well, it's about growing and being able to expand your versions of yourself into the next ones as life presents you with the next pieces. And often what may have felt like a hard no at the beginning for me, right? I will never have anybody live with me again. I will not raise my children with someone, may end up becoming a yes when it's the right person and the right time. And I think so much of that being possible comes from the heart and soul of what I teach is, which is when you trust yourself, when you have built this deep, deep trust with yourself, you don't have to rely as heavily on the external rules or ideas or stories that you've built about what your life is going to look like or what you project for the future, as much as you can come back into like, okay, what feels right? What is the next step for me? So there it is, y'all. That is my list of the seven things that were the most unexpected for me over the last six years of me being divorced. And of course, as you guys know, I'm sure you've already picked up from this episode. This is an episode that is talking more about those that are considering the go track, right? This is hopefully providing perspective and like a heads up on you may think you know how the journey's gonna go, and here are some ways that it could be different. And that's part of the process. Like you still get to feel proud about wherever your journey takes you. I look looking back at all of this over these last six years and seeing, right, some of the things that I'm like, oh my God, I fucking love that. Like, I love that I went to the burn and I love that I have this work that I'm passionate about. And then seeing some of the ones where I'm like, ooh, you know, we still got some, we still got some stuff on that. I mean, I had like a panic attack before I did the episode, a little bit that's that's like way over-exaggerating, but a little bit of like an anxiety attack thinking about, you know, talking about this partnership of this guy that I dated that was like in a lot of ways worse than the, you know, emotional and verbal abuse I experienced with my husband, or at least different. As I was thinking about that too, I was like, uh, there was, you know, but definitely verbally worse. And that's a really like tender thing to admit of, oh, I can make this decision. And guess what? I'm still human and I'm still gonna learn through it, and I'm still gonna have moments where I'm like, oh, okay, that was an interesting choice. And I learned from it and I won't be doing it again. That was definitely a piece of it for me. So I'm hoping that in listening to this, though, for many of you that are in the, you know, in the stage of questioning everything and wondering what's ahead, wishing you had a crystal ball where you could look in and go, what's possible? What's gonna happen? I just want you all to know that I see you. And I hope that this episode helps you understand that there are so many things waiting for you that you can't even imagine yet. And there will be highs and there will be lows. And it will not all be, you know, just because you get divorced doesn't mean it's all sunshine and roses and daisies. But hopefully I've conveyed that even with all of the highs and the lows, y'all, I genuinely have loved every bit of these last six years of my life because those six years have been mine. It has been my growth. My life for these last six years has been driven by my truth. And it has been fueled in support of my growth. And that has made me into so much more of who I am, more than the previous 30 years combined ever did for me. This has brought me closer to being and living every day as I feel like the deepest part of me wants to live. And it has surprised me in some of the best ways. It has taken me to some of the highest highs and some of the deepest, deepest lows. And I don't believe that I am somehow rare or special in this way. I truly believe that the universe has the same journey for each and every one of you. Like you have your own special path that only you can take in this lifetime. And although this is from the perspective of going, for some of you, that may very well be on the path of staying as well. I was literally just talking to one of my previous past clients the other day who her path, I'm just so in love with and like proud of her and her path, um, was not actually ending her marriage. And I've seen her and her husband get so much growth out of it. And they're currently creating a very different dynamic. Like she just moved out and she has her own apartment and he has the house, and they're raising their son together, and they're finding a way for her to still grow and really be expressed in the way she most wants. Ah, which I'm just like thinking so much of her journey. And I'm like, I'm so obsessed with that because, you know, she as well, like so many of us as women, I don't think got to individuate very much in childhood with her parents, with her life. She didn't really get to figure out who she is. And through her husband also doing his own growth, he has leaned in and had to do his own work, they are creating a totally different reality for them where neither one has to kind of sacrifice themselves and their growth to keep that relationship going. So know that that reality is also possible. How we move into either one of those realities is by coming into deep love and trust for ourselves. Like that's what I was doing when I coached myself through my divorce and what I've done repeatedly over the last six years. That's what I've done with her as my client. You know, we really thought she was gonna, when we first started, it seemed like she was leaning towards divorce. And then when we got into the journey, the process, when I work with my one-on-one coaching clients, there is so much more there that we unearthed that really is a process of coming to know yourself. And more than anything, y'all, you know, that is what I want one day when I leave this life, when I'm on my deathbed, I want to be able to look back and be like, yeah, I fucking knew myself. Maybe I didn't know how everything was gonna go down. Maybe I didn't know the twists and turns of the journey. But through trusting myself and taking the journey, I have come to really know myself. And then maybe even deeper than that, love myself because I'm constantly changing. I'm constantly growing. Even when I say like I know myself, I know that the self I am is gonna expand, it's gonna grow, it's gonna move, it's gonna flow. That's what I am. And that's really the heart and soul of the podcast. Those of you listening know this. It's so much more. The work that I do with all of you, you know, on this podcast, with my women in the community, with my one-on-one clients, is about using the process of considering divorce to really figure out how to trust and love yourself and then move forward with your life. And so for those of you that might be feeling after listening to this, because I know, I know y'all at times, that's why I'm so grateful to give episodes like this where I can kind of be like, hey, here are some of the areas I'm also still confused and struggling in, because I think it normalizes, hopefully, and makes you all feel like, oh, Brita is just a human. Like I'm just a human going through my own journey, just like y'all. And I also know that there come points in your journey where you're like, I just need someone else's eyes on this to help me see the parts, right? I definitely this year with getting my business coach and having her show me how to think about things differently, I was just reminded again of the power of having a coach who is neutral, out of the pool, be able to look at your brain and be like, hey, babe, look at this, look at this, look at this, and provide different perspective. So if you have been feeling that call, wondering what might my future journey be, what might my past and everything I've been through be trying to tell me, I want to encourage you guys to get on a 90 minute with me. Um, I actually just had a client who I did a 90 minute with her a year ago, like last summer, and then she joined the community and she just recently like made a huge, huge step in her process. It's been such a gift to like do a 90 with her and then get to watch her grow in the community. And it was so inspiring to see her take the things that we learned on the 90, apply them for the last year, get the support in the community, and ultimately start moving forward with something that she's been considering for eight years now. This is the this last week was the moment where she like spoke aloud and started moving forward with the process. And that's no small thing, y'all, because this is your life. This is for all we know, this is this this is the one life that you get to be, the you that is you in this one life. Maybe we have multiple lives where we get to be other people, but like I love knowing that like this is the life where I get to be British O. So I'm gonna go hard and send it all the way, being the most British O that I can be. And for some of you, it's it's so helpful with the 90 minute to get that perspective, to have somebody see the path you've been on, see where you're coming from, help you identify what you want in the future. And then, of course, what you get after the 90 minute is that PDF I send over with my recording giving you the roadmap. Here are the resources. Start digging into this. This is what I'm seeing here. So, definitely a huge catalyst and opener with the 90 minute. And of course, as I just mentioned, what I'm seeing more and more is that what seems to be really powerful for a lot of women that can't coach with me one-on-one is doing a 90 minute and then moving into the community from there. Because the community is where we're experiencing that connection. And y'all, I haven't even gotten to really, I mean, I've been talking about how amazing the community is for obviously you guys have heard like months now, and we're coming up on the one year anniversary of the community, which is so wild to me. And like, oh my God, I can't even believe that we're almost there. Um, but I feel like I'm now where the community in the beginning was kind of a hypothesis for me of okay. What could be possible for women if they're doing this work with each other in community? Could it make things easier? Could it speed things up for them? Could it provide them more clarity? I didn't know, y'all. I mean, I'd read research around it. I knew what the research said, but I didn't, I'd never been in something like this. I'd never experienced what this could be like. And I certainly hadn't facilitated or done group work before this. And now here we are almost a year out, y'all. And this, these last few months, I've really been grounding and realizing like, oh shit, the hypothesis is right. Like my hopes for the community, what I dreamed might be possible for the women entering it, are coming true. Like the women that really engage in the community, that are showing up on the live calls, that are letting themselves be seen, that are writing and asking for support and sharing parts of themselves are getting those results of feeling more trust in themselves, being able to move forward, taking the steps that shift the needle of their lives in the direction that they want it to go. So this is just another reminder that the community is an incredible, incredible resource. And even if you can't do a 90 with me first, I have women that join the community that haven't been able to do a 90. It still can be so just opening. That's what I see. When you have other women that are right by you that have got your back as you're going through this process, you're able to go through it with a deeper sense of bravery. Like, I'm gonna be okay. There are women who've got me. And damn, do we all just need this right now in this world? I have to say, y'all, watching the way things are going down right now in the world, I have never felt more grateful and proud that I started this community a year ago because I think it was just going to be a resource that's going to build in the future, that's going to have more and more women that want to be a part of it and that need to be a part of it because we need to be in relationship with other women. We need to know that there are women who have our back, that love us, that see us, that see the best in us. And I just want to also say that for those of you that have been considering the community, like now is the time to join because as I said, I see it only expanding from here. And one of the most special things about the community this last year that I know will change, because that's what happens with life. Change is the only constant, is the community is still really small. I think we have like maybe 30 to 35 women in the community. And so it's still very super intimate. You know, I think we had some of our largest calls this last month. I did like a coaching call where I had maybe like nine to 10 women on it all at the same time. Um, and I know for our workshop recently we had about eight to nine women. So the calls are still really small. You can still be in the community and kind of really getting to know everybody in it. I mean, we have these amazing calls at the end of each week called Weather of the Week, where I'll have maybe, you know, three to five or six women on them, and each one of them gets to share in like a round table format. So you get to know these women, you get to love them, you get to see them. It's not just, you know, like other groups that you might be a part of that just are so they're big, you know, they've already gotten to a point where there's a lot of women in them. And so this is a really special time in the community for women to that are in it to really get to know each other. And I know that's gonna like be so potent in a couple of weeks when I'm at our first retreat with the women that are coming from the community to that, because they've gone through, you know, months, if not for some of them, almost an entire year with each other. And now they're getting to meet each other in person live. Like this is the gifts, the expansion that comes out of investing in relationships with other women going through hard things. It's life-changing. I also want to finish by just saying, you know, if you are one of my listeners that is where you find yourself in your journey is the financial piece is not what's difficult for you. You feel financially set, maybe you're really high achieving in your work. You're not worried about that piece, but where you get stuck, where you feel paralyzed and unable to move is in your marriage. I think so much of one of my previous clients who seriously all like incredible fucking human, um, psychotherapist, like I'm pretty sure when we finished, she was like the the president of the board in her world, like very, very career-oriented like woman. And yet, when I started coaching her, when it came to the dynamic with her husband, it was so confusing, so difficult, so paralyzing in so many ways. And as we worked together, we were able to shift that. And she actually did end up getting divorced and is now off on the next part of her journey. Um, so I just want to say to those of you that are finding yourself in that position, my one-on-one coaching, that's gonna be the spot for you. Okay. Um, this is a much deeper work. This is, I in fact, was interviewing someone last week that was applying to work with me. And I was like, hey, just be prepared that once we start working together, it's going to move. Your life is going to open. I've really started to accept and just honor that I am a catalyst. And when I work closely with my 101 clients, their lives change. Things move and they move quickly. So if you're at that point where you're like, look, I am ready. I want not only to move through this process, but I want to come through it so fucking strong. This is also for women that are like, I have a passion. I'm actually working with a 101 client right now who I can feel like she has a soul call and a passion of something that she wants to bring to the world that is honestly being limited and not able to be fueled by all of the distraction in the unhealthiness and the patterns and the CPTSD triggers in her marriage. And so to have this next part of the journey, we've got to move through that. And as we're working one-on-one together, that's that's the work we're doing. We're building those pieces, that foundation in her that obviously, like as we've talked on the podcast, or rooted in so many pieces of your childhood, of your previous trauma, that having me be there by your side can make just a world of difference for. And that's what I want for every woman. I want us to go through if we do decide to get divorced. I want you to launch from that space. And I want you to succeed and to have the things you want most in your life. And of course, you're not going to have it all figured out, as this episode showed y'all. I've still got areas I'm working on. But the overall feeling in my life is one of massive self-trust and knowing that my journey is unfolding perfectly and I can follow it through being connected down into the deepest parts of myself. And that's the work I get to do really, really deeply, super intimately with my one-on-one coaching clients. So if that speaks to you, go find on the website. It's called the Deep Dive. There's an application process. We do a whole call beforehand to make sure we're a vibe. Um, very different from the 90-minute y'all. I've had a few people in the past sign up for the alignment and clarity call. That's if you want to work with me one-on-one, totally different. I'm not with that one giving you a PDF and a roadmap for you to do on your own because we're actually going to be doing that work together. So make sure when you're scheduling that if you're wanting the 90 minute, you're looking for the get unstuck and empowered session. Um, and for those of you wanting to dive deep with me in the one-on-one, that's the alignment and clarity call. All right, y'all. I won't see you next week, at least here on the podcast. But I am sending you all so much love, and I will see you all over on Substack.