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. Welcome back, y'all. Okay, okay. Can we just, for those of you that got to pop over to the amazing Maya and Biolic breakdown last week for the episode that dropped on Friday, you've been hopefully caught up in the same energy that we've been processing this weekend. Me and Quinn coming off of that gorgeous experience. And we decided that today's episode would be kind of continuing the conversation off of that. Things that while both Quinn and I were listening, we were like, ooh, I wish I could have gone deeper there. Or what about this angle? Quinn took one for the team, y'all, and went and read the comments and warned Britta to not. Yeah, it was last night. We were gonna record this episode last night. I was under-resourced. I needed to just chill the F out. And so I called her to be like, I can't record tonight. Let's do it tomorrow. And she was like, okay, that sounds wonderful. Um, also, don't read the comments. And I hadn't even known you were reading them. So it was so out of left field. I was like, oh, are you reading the comments? And you're like, Yep, yep, I'm reading the comments, and we're gonna talk about them, but you don't need to go read them.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, because most of them are very positive. People are appreciative that there was this conversation, and yet there were also the trolls or people who completely missed your points, and it seemed kind of intentional, like they're so in their own head about this topic that it was hard for them to actually hear what you were saying. But then there were some people that brought up some really good points, and I think it will be important to consider those comments as we discuss to see if we can expand or explain or clarify or double down on your position on certain things. That's so sexy.
SPEAKER_02All of those, all of the above. Yeah, and I just have to say, y'all, I love so much. Last night you were like, oh, I think it's about 10% of the comments, maybe or more. And then this morning you're like, it wasn't, it wasn't that much. But even if it had been, where I landed last night hearing you say, you know, don't listen to the comments, is I thought this is the gift of having an opinion in the world and talking about something that is very emotional. You know, this is something that most people have a real-world experience or interaction with. It's not a scientific discovery, right? Those are a little more informational and people can listen to those and just kind of take them in and go on with their lives. But the stuff we were talking about on that episode is definitely an emotional trigger point for many, many people.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it doesn't feel neutral. Like in some of their other podcasts, it's neutral information. Take this on if you want. And this, even if you haven't been through divorce, even if you've never considered divorce, it's likely you have an opinion, a strong opinion about divorce or women considering divorce. Yes. As do we. As do we.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. We were starting to prep the episode, and Quinn was like, let's just roll. She was actually starting to read me the comments ahead of time and the reactions I was giving, I was like, no, no, we need to just, we need to do this live. We need to do this in the wild, um, because the conversations that were coming out of it were so juicy. So we're gonna start off the beginning of the episode, just dropping in to some of these comments that Quinn ended up pulling. And then potentially later on, depending on how long this episode ends up going, we've got some other big topics that came out of the episode that I wanted to expound on more or even get Quinn's kind of take on. So I'll let you take it away with the comments, Quinn.
SPEAKER_00Okay. So there was this part in your discussion where you said that one of the main reasons that women hesitate is their fear of the pain it will cause their partner. And you framed it as an empathetic Achilles heel. Is that right? Yeah, that's right. Okay. And Mayam was saying, that is so sick that a person would stay in a relationship that's bad for them because they're afraid of what the impact of them leaving on their partner. So this commenter said, I think the moment that shook me to my core was Mayam's exclamation of what? That sounds so fucking sick. Yes, like all caps, exclamation point, exclamation point. It hit me that as she said this, I was simultaneously thinking Britta Joe is describing me. And it's so fucking sick. Whammo, as Maya says aloud, what I am suddenly realizing just wow. Now I think that a lot of people think that women considering divorce or choosing to leave, it comes from a very calloused, calculated space. And your experience and my experience is something very different. But mine seemed genuinely surprised.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that that one of the top real reasons that women are staying is out of not wanting to hurt their partner's feelings or or feeling so deeply that their partner is is not going to thrive, is not going to do well, does not have the support system that he needs, that they will stay and hurt themselves further to just prevent his pain. I think why this is so shocking is because if you look back through history and kind of in some of the comments that you saw, I think, um, because you did share a few of them with me, but there is this prevailing idea amongst men that women are just like, fuck you, I'm out.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, taking it very lightly, just yeah, I'm not happy, I'm gone.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And I think that often comes from their perspective, right? Because we talked about this a little bit with Jonathan, that often men within the marriage are still getting a lot of what they need. Yeah. And so when a woman comes and does finally like pull the trigger and says, I've filed, you and I have both seen there's a lot of shock typically involved for men in that experience. So if you think about that, then that has driven the narrative that somehow women just out of the fucking blue decide one day to be like, I'm not happy, I'm leaving. When you and I, from going through it ourselves and then working with women and seeing their internal worlds, we know that there are a lot of women who have been considering and dealing with all of the struggle and the emotions around that for years, if not, you know, some of them a decade.
SPEAKER_00Yes, mine was decades. Me struggling, me fighting to stay in. He doesn't know how to take care of the kids, and that the kids will be the ultimate recipient of his inability to function in the world. And so it is care for him, but it's also care for the children. And I know that was the truth for me. I was so afraid of what's gonna happen when I'm not standing between my spouse and my children. Will he be able to function? Yeah, I mean, this is this is the ultimate martyrdom.
SPEAKER_02This is this is the core of what I was trying to convey of there are women literally sacrificing themselves on the altars of marriage and motherhood because they have been trained to believe that that is what is required of them for their children to be okay.
SPEAKER_00I love when you acknowledged, and Jonathan, he was saying, Well, what if, what if, you know, you could have just been with the kids for 50% of the time and you could go and do these other things. And that's when you guys had to remind him, we're not talking about women should always leave, but in the considering giving breathing room and space to the container of the marriage and the relationship. There's there's time and opportunity to look at those other options.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, which really comes down to changing the entire dialogue around divorce. I think so many people are afraid to admit divorce is on the table. And and it's because when divorce gets on the table, it's like people lose their shit and they just kind of start freaking out. I don't see it as a problem, though, because when we start actually dealing with, like, hey, this is on the table, then everybody understands what's at stake. And this is the mistake so many men are making continuing to kind of close their eyes when the signs are there, right? She's disconnecting, she's emotionally disengaging, you guys are kind of robotically going through the motion. She's no longer advocating for the things that she wants with you like she used to. They may think, and Jonathan kind of mentioned this, well, things are just fine. Sometimes she gets upset, but at least we watch TV together. And unbeknownst to you, what could be brewing under the surface is actually what I get a peek into all the time, which is an intense and very painful internal struggle around who am I? What do I want? Is this actually aligned? So really, you know, the conversation that I think was missing, and that I think why this is so triggering is because so many people just see divorce as like the worst possible thing that you could talk about or bring in. But my feeling is when we bring it in, then everybody realizes okay, this is the real, this is the reality of what's at stake. So let's really lean in and actually show up. Where if you don't do that, then you end up getting what so many men feel like is the blindsidedness that they feel like their partner did to them that they actually did to themselves.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I think one part that Jonathan is missing is that he kind of takes for granted that his experience is the female experience in this way. He was raised as a man to figure out what do I want to do? What are my passions? How am I going to be in the world? What matters to me? And women are taught to center him. What does he want? How can I support him? What's the role that I can play as the helpmate? What do I bring to the table rather than who am I? We're given this external perspective where not only are we seeking the man's attention, but the way women view themselves in the world from this outside perspective. How is the light hitting me? What does my ass look like? How is my makeup? Like seeing ourselves from the outside. Whereas I think men are taught to look from the inside out into the world. And the women are always outside of themselves looking at themselves. And so for a man to say, Hey, you know, yeah, go find yourself, or you have everything you need. Why are you not happy? It's because there's this process that women have been denied. And I think primarily through religion, but also through culture of finding our internal selves.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And as you're saying this, I'm wondering if there's a deeper conversation around, like, I'm wondering if why some of this is so polarizing is because we are talking about it in terms of women and men. And because we are in a patriarchal society that is parsed out by gender into a more like women being in a more codependent role and men being in what is typically a more like self-focused kind of energy of it's about me and my life and me finding what I want. And the codependent is it's about my partner, or it's about the people around me. So I want to offer, and I think this is a key distinction coming off of that episode, is I'm sure there were men listening who are like, no, I'm the one that has lost myself. I'm the one that is doing all of the things. And I have a partner who's out there just kind of blazing the trail, not checking to see who's a casualty along the way. It goes back to that, like really checking in with your personal experience, no matter what gender you are.
SPEAKER_00There were a couple comments about that, the frustration of how gendered the conversation was. But at the same time, you made it clear that I work with women. And so that's my perspective. That's my profession. I don't speak to the male side. And I think, but I think it points out the need for a broader perspective and more professionals, not working so much from the bro podcast, like make your woman submit, but to really like stand side by side with the work that you do in helping men who are in the same position.
SPEAKER_02And I have mentioned this in previous episodes. We see a lot out right now of well, women need to get in their feminine and become more submitted, and men just need to step it up and get up into their masculine. No, no, no, no, no, no. Y'all, it's just the same thing we've been doing in a new quote enlightened package. Yeah. I really think the answer is that yin and yang balance within each individual. And I do prefer talking about masculine and feminine energies. I'm trying more and more to talk about them as a yin and a yang rather than gender. Yes. Because kind of what we had to do on that podcast is like Maya's saying, nobody has time to spend four minutes describing the patriarchy. We're just going to say the patriarchy for the sake of time. But this is the beauty of us getting a little more nuanced here are absolutely going to be individuals who don't fit that mold, those bigger overarching trends we see of men typically falling in this camp and women falling in this camp. And if that is you listening to that episode, you're going to be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a second. It's not just men, right? Because you as a man, in fact, I had a guy on Instagram message me who basically said that same thing. He's like, My wife is the breadwinner. I'm more of the codependent. So this is the beauty of dropping in post-episode and saying, yes, this is a very emotional heated topic because it's so personal.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_02And what is the most important piece from the whole episode is understanding there is this opportunity in the considering. We're so afraid to even acknowledge what's happening, how bad things have gotten, to admit that divorce is on the table, that by the time we actually do that, the patient's dead on arrival.
SPEAKER_00Yes. Yes. I think that is such a good point. And I think that's why marriage therapy, by the time people go to marriage therapy, the conversations needed to have happened way before. But I want to read you a comment. And I don't know that it's coming from a genuine place. It seems like kind of a snarky comment. But anyway, here it is. Women tend to way overthink their problems. Men just tend to get on with it. The more you want, the less you have.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, this breaks my heart, this comment. This is this is a casualty of the world we live in. Of just get on with it. Why ask the deeper questions? Why give a fuck? This sounds a lot like childhood trauma. Um, you know, being told as a child, if you ask for more, if you think about it deeper, there will be no one there to resource you. There will not be more. And boy, do I have compassion. The heart of that is being told, don't ask questions.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02You know, don't want too much. The more you want, the less you you have. And the smaller you are, the safer you are. And boy, do you and I both get that. We were we relate to that conditioning, that programming. Yeah, a hundred percent. And I'm like so glad we're reading the comments now because I'm I think we're getting a little peek into a lot of probably the male perspective and how much they are hurting on that side as well, which comes to the bigger, like big, big view of my work, which is we have got to be doing a better job of supporting the complexity of humans trying to do human life. Yeah. We're like, just get married, just have kids, just get a nice house. It's all gonna be fine. Yeah. And what you see is deep underneath all of that for a lot of people, maybe not for all, but definitely a lot of the women I coach, myself included, and you that cut off and left out an immense amount of psychological wellness, mental health, being able to be a whole person with all of my complex and messy parts.
SPEAKER_00Okay, then you're really gonna love this comment.
SPEAKER_02Oh my God, I love you, just all right. You had me all scared about these comments, and all I'm feeling is like deep compassion. I'm like, yeah, y'all, it is fucked up out here. I feel you.
SPEAKER_00Okay. So women just need to lower their expectations. Problem solved.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah. No, so this is an incel, and I'll just be like, fuck you.
unknownFuck you.
SPEAKER_02Because here's here's okay, so here's where we start. This is very, this is like patriarchal language for sure. This does sound like male perspectives, and you can kind of see the evolution there into like full blown, I have completely shut off my level of compassion for a human hurting, and I'm just gonna say, shut the fuck up, you know.
SPEAKER_00And I'm not interested in growing myself or improving myself. Like, you need to come to my level. You shouldn't expect me to be any more than what I am. So is this a problem? Like, are women coming to you with really high expectations of what they want in relationships and marriage? Like you mentioned in the podcast, a lot of women are like, I just want to be married to someone who wants to have sex with me. I just want to be married to someone who's kind. Yeah. I just wanted to be married to someone who would be honest. Yeah. I mean, how much further down I wanted to be married to someone who was not who would not punish me every time he didn't get exactly what he wanted from me and wouldn't take it out on the kids. That's what I wanted. Like, how much lower should I put the standard of what I'm willing to accept?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And this is where you're you're taking from that comment, right? Which I find that comment I find it to be such a sad and accurate representation of what the patriarch. Has gotten some men. That's like male privilege a thousand percent. It's not that bad up here. So stop bitching. And I'm like, you don't know what it feels like to be here down in my life, in what I'm doing. Um, so when you say, you know, expectations, it is a massive spectrum. It is a huge range. But what I feel like I see pretty consistently, at least with the women that resonate with my voice, is they are already deeply talking themselves down. You know, I don't have to try to gate, like get their expectations down.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Often, um, like you said, some of the baseline things we would hope for and expect in a quote, good marriage, where there is healthy communication, there is kindness, there is respect, there is um sharing of responsibilities, there is both individuals being able to thrive in their personal endeavors and their individual pursuits while also building this shared structure of a marriage and perhaps a family with kids in it. That is very, I'll go so far as to say, like very few women's realities. When we start taking those patients coming into the ER one by one, those marriages, those relationships, it's like, oh, we have a serious breakdown of abilities to, I mean, just based on levels of like nonviolent communication in the marriage.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_02Communication that doesn't involve, like you said, manipulation or gaslighting or guilting or shaming. Yes.
SPEAKER_00But on the other hand, you have people in the community where their husband, he's a quote unquote good guy. Like he's providing for the family, he's nice, he's trying. I mean, I don't want to normalize it. Like, yeah, it's only okay to consider divorce if he's dishonest or he's somewhat violent. Sometimes it's just you're not a good fit.
SPEAKER_02And this goes down to the like knowing yourself. So that comment again, what was it?
SPEAKER_00You need to um reduce your expectations, lower your expectations, problem solved.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And to that I would offer like, what the fuck am I doing here then? Like your life is your own. And that's why we are so big on like teaching women. Then what the fuck are you doing here? Whose life are you living? And who are you living it for? Your one life. Yeah, you are the main character. You're not a supporting role. Lower your expectations so you can be, yeah, the supporting actress in his movie. I nah. I I get that that has served the bigger machines of culture and government and the patriarchy really well for a long time.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, capitalism needed a lot of unpaid labor to let the men do their thing.
SPEAKER_02That is such a good line.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And we're like, nah, we want to live our own lives. This big character energy that I'm seeing in the generation of women coming up. I'm like, yes, yes. But it's not that, like my college-age girls, it's not that they want to be unpartnered for their whole lives. They want to see a partner that will walk with them. Yes.
SPEAKER_02Which, which, in my opinion, that is not too high of expectations. Right. And that's that's the real issue inherent in that is this idea and what we have been trained to believe are women's roles and what they should be happy with. And for a lot of us, I said that in the episode, right? Holy fuck, that box was so excruciatingly small for the complexity of the brilliant mind I have and the personality I have, and being told lower your expectations and be content with being a stay-at-home mom. I get that people love that. But y'all, for me, that was so hard. I remember going on a trip actually right before we ended up getting, I ended up filing for divorce. We did the typical, you know, couple big trips, thinking that that would like fix things going internationally. And we went on this one with a bunch of my ex-husband's work colleagues. And I remember sitting on a boat talking to a man, big like LASIK surgeon, somewhere in, you know, the East Coast, like his kids held forks in ways I'd never seen before. I was like, okay, these are different people. Like just a different stratosphere, different reality. And he's talking to me. And he, I remember him at one point. I remember it so distinctly. He looks at me and he's like, wait a second, I'm sorry, what do you do? And I was like, Oh, I'm I am a stay-at-home mom. I stay home with our three boys. And he was like, What are you doing?
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02Why, why are you doing this? And he turned to my husband and he was like, Why, why is she? And and and, you know, this is gonna, we'd have to do a whole other episode on like the fuck, right? These were individuals who, like Mayam said, were coming from a reality of they had a nanny, right? And so his wife was also like fulfilling her dreams, and and the the two of them were both getting to like really expand in the ways they wanted to. The point of that was it made me go. No one my whole life had said, wait a second, you have some really incredible thoughts and visions and ideas about the world. How are you being supported in that? And I'd never even had the contrast of someone seeing staying home with my kids as not the most amazing, perfect, like top-of-the-top thing I could do. Do you do you see, yeah, you see it, Quinn? Yes, because that's what we were told.
SPEAKER_00That, and and there's even that quote from David O. McKay, a Mormon prophet, something about there's no success in the world that can make up for failure in the home. And failure in the home is women going to work outside of the home. So there's a comment I want to share with you because I think you're talking about. So here's this box of marriage. And you take these very complex, beautiful, wild individuals and you shove them into this box that we call marriage.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and don't read the comment yet, because I I want, I am like so into this conversation we're having right now. And what I want to say, because I want to just nuance it a bit, of coming back to expectations. The point that I want to be made before we walk away from this is that deep down in me, as the incredible, like one-of-a-kind Britta Joe that will never exist on this planet again in this exact formulation of cells and beautiful trauma and parents and friends and lovers, all the things that have made me me. Deep down inside of me were desires. Like when he says lower your expectations, I feel like he's saying, shut your soul calls up and get with the program, which is you need to be a part of the machine and you need to be willing to let yourself sacrifice all of those dreams to make the machine work. For me, lowering my expectations was never even being given the chance to have a career. I know there are going to be women listening to this where it's the opposite, where what they were told, the box they were programmed was, you need to go get a career and you need to do this. And maybe their soul call is I really want to be with a partner that will support and be there for me in a way where I can be home with my kids. Yes. So that's that's the like mind expanding moment where we all go, oh, let's just step back a little bit from putting our expectations, you know, judging others' expectations and thinking we know what the expectations should be for everybody and being in such a fucking rush to do what, y'all, to make more money, to get into a house. I we're rushing past our lives without really checking in with what are my soul desires? What does a good life, a life lived well, actually look like and feel like for me? And I'm here unequivocally to say, in response to that question, that is every human's universe-given right to have those messages inside of you and to get to follow them. And what a gift it is for you and I to be on the side of supporting that movement, of pouring into the frequency of people get to live full, amazing lives that look exactly like the way they want it to look. Exactly.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. And I'm so glad you framed it in that way. I have a client right now who has never spent a summer with her kids. She has always worked. And she has created a life right now where this will be the first summer these next eight weeks with her kids. And she's planning on going back to work. Like she just finished a job and she's planning to go back to work, but she's like, I've never had this before and I want this. But she's choosing it from this soul deep place. So I love that for her. It's not, I'm dreaming of other things. This is a good thing.
SPEAKER_02But being forced to pick this because this is what's expected of me. You're right. It it really comes down to are you getting to consensually choose the life that you're having to live?
SPEAKER_00Yes. And it gets to be messy. And that's what I love about the considering part because a woman may come to her spouse and say, I really want to get a job or I really want to pursue this other thing. And then she may go do that and find, oh shit, I brought my brain with me. This isn't making me happy, which allows her to go even deeper to see what is it in her. And I think we need to hold some level of patience and like curiosity, respect for each other's processes. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02For the the incredibly intricate process it is to create and have a whole and healthy and functioning psyche and life. I don't know about y'all, but I was taught like just get married and have kids. That shit'll be great.
SPEAKER_00Well, the process you're talking about is highly inefficient. And within our economic and relationship, there it is, we want it to be efficient. So boom, boom, boom. Get married, have kids, raise those kids, support the spouse, you know, put into your 401k, retire, die. But it's like retire, die. Right? But I think it was, was it Henry David Thoreau who went and lived on Waldham Pond? And he said, you know, I want when I get to the end of my life, I don't want to discover in my death that I never lived. And you're asking for this space to live rather than I'm gonna race to the home, I'm gonna race to the career to slow down, to do the soul excavating work of finding yourself, finding your center, finding that trust deep within and that capital K knowing.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And I love you bringing up the the when you said it was it's efficiency, a hundred percent. Most of us have just been shuttled into efficiency, into keep the machine running with your life force without ever stopping and going, wait a second, this life force is actually mine. And there is a different route. And boy, do I have compassion that because so many of us weren't raised like that as children, we are now in the really fucking messy part, especially the women I work with, of waking up when you have become part of a massive machine of a marriage and children and having the bravery in that moment to go, whoa, whoa, slow down. I am not doing well. This is actually not filling me like I thought it was gonna do, or this is this is not helping me, or I'm or just the really raw reality of I'm not gonna make it the next five years. Like that is what was so neglected in these comments and so in like so callous and inhumane in the like just fucking lower your expectations. That denies the psychic pain and weight that my women are wrestling with on the daily for some of them to just stay alive, and you're telling them lower their expectations more?
SPEAKER_00Nah. Nah, nah. No. So this is a comment from someone who has been married and is still married. She says, married almost 15 years, love my guy and love our life, but that doesn't mean it's been or is a breeze. Far from it. It's hard and overrated. Knowing then what I know now, and I say this to him a lot, and others if the topic comes up, I'm not sure I'd want to be married. I'd want to be together, but not married. And I think that's an interesting idea. Like marriage has its own expectations. So she's saying, Yeah, I want to be together. I want to be with this person, but I don't want to be married to this person.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, like what I know there are people listening who are like, what how is that different? What does that even mean? And for you and I, we're like, oh, that means a world of difference. Yeah. And it's so beautiful that so much of the conversation is landing on expectations because it is the idea of marriage, what it represents inherent with mar it within marriage are often roles that are expected to be played. Um, so of course, you know, I would love to talk to her more deeply to get all of the nuance of this, but it sounds like what she's saying is I love this person. I don't like the life that we kind of got thrown into through the expectations that come out of marriage.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. And I think for me, I don't want to get married again. Because for me, and I think there are probably women in my age range. I'm 53. So getting married now, I still have kids at home. I'm not gonna give a man access to my kids at home, um, daughters. I'm also not gonna give up the spousal support, the alimony, because I fucking earned that. Now I'm I wanted them to pay me that. But I I too have a lot of oh my God, if I get married, I have to take care of this person. Whereas I like my lovers fully formed, I like them like their own. That's an interesting with their friends and their support group, and I'm just an addition to that, and they're just an addition to me. Whereas when I think of marriage, the number of women who say, my spouse has no one else, and the women become super common. And I am not willing to play that role for anyone, much less a man.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think my experience was definitely where yours was. And by the way, I see your experience, that feeling of like, I don't ever want to get married again. That's like the prevailing sentiment for most women coming off of divorce. Because for women historically, marriage has been so draining. Yeah. It has, you know, just historically, I know that may not be for those listening, that may not be your marriage, especially if, you know, you're a guy that's in a more codependent role in your marriage. That may not fit you, but historically, marriage for women has, and I said this in the episode: women live like five years less, right? Women who are married take a toll to their life expectancy. Um, so it's very, in fact, I have lots of women coming off that are like, oh my God, I don't ever want to get married. Is that normal? I'm like, oh yeah, so normal. It's okay. You don't have to work that out, figure that out, like just let it be what it is. I have found now it's been very interesting for me over this last, yeah, you know where I'm going, over this last year with my partner to notice curiosity coming up around that and to start having conversations with him and to see how much I have such an intense aversion to marriage because of what my trauma was around marriage in the past. I can only think of and view marriage through the lens of what it was with my ex-husband, through a patr, you know, very heavily religious, patriarchal lens of marriage. So for me, it's beautiful to watch there be kind of an opening and a curiosity and a realizing how much marriage of itself is not good or bad. Just like divorce of itself is not good or bad. It really comes down to the people that are in it and how they are defining it and what expectations they are bringing to the table around marriage.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think that's a really good point. I want to shift a little bit as we've talked about men and expectations, and you are the mom to three amazing, bright, brilliant boys. Now, this comment I think needs to be addressed on a larger stage, but I'm interested in your point of view. So it shows a timestamp as to when this question was asked. And it's around the time where you're saying women want to be seen, they want this authenticity, they want to be known. And this person asks, How can I teach my sons to have this deeper connection?
SPEAKER_02Oh, there's that next generation. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so and I love this. This is coming back to kind of something Mayam said after the episode two, where she's like, I wish we could have talked more about children. Because we really didn't get to do that in the episode, but we'll do it here. By far, the greatest gift I have given my children is my own soul seeing. Yes. You know, how do you raise sons that are going to be able to see the soul of another woman? They see a mother who sees her own soul. I agree. And, you know, obviously my boys are not grown. So I don't, and I don't have ultimately you realize you don't have control over your children, like their pasts are their own. I've really learned to surrender to that. But no matter how much you tell your kids, no matter the words you use, the actions and the energy you exist in daily are what land. Those are what they get programmed with. And I can see how before I got divorced, I did not know my own soul. I was struggling with so much aspects of just not knowing myself, which then led to a lot of taking that out. On them, a lot of scattered energy, a lot of dysregulation that over the last five years has been able to decrease as my foundation in myself has increased, as I have learned the tools to support myself. The um as I have had people in my life, you know, you close friends I've had, um, now my partner Joe, that can really support and love me and see me, it's it's not necessarily a quantifiable here's how you teach them, as much as it is you go on the journey yourself and they grow up seeing that this is what women are. Women are wild and strong and complex. And um, you know, my children are not, my boys are not being raised, seeing a woman who just like I would have been previously, right? Who's at home all the time, catering to everything they need, um, able to drop everything to be there for them, which goes into like much deeper ideas, right, that we have in the West right now of like our helicopter parenting and what your kids need is just like for you to be there for them. My experience has been what my kids have needed is to see me be there for myself first. And through that, my hope is that they are learning and seeing a different version of womanhood, that one day when they end up dating and they have partners, um, they'll be able to see those differences.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I think that's a really good answer because I think that we have this idea, and we're definitely raised with this in Mormonism, that we are so responsible. What is taught in the home is so important and how our children turn out. Do they go on missions? Do they get married in the temple? That's really reflective of the mother within that religious culture. And to let go of that has been so freeing. And seeing my boys, so my oldest son, he was out of the house when I divorced, and we have no contact. And he is healing from CPTSD, yeah, from growing up in an intact family. And then my younger son, who is still in my house, he like last night he gets home from work, come flops on my bed, and just wants to talk and connect. And he sees me in my exploration of who I am and dating again and having this broader view. And I'm a different mother to him than what my older son experienced. But just seeing the difference in one son does not feel safe to be around me, even though I taught him so many good things. And my other son can tell me anything because I'm honest about the fact that I don't know. That you don't have the answers. I don't have the answers. And teaching him to trust himself. And I'm hoping that in us having these conversations around considering divorce, we can normalize it. That when you're in a relationship, it's not always, all right, I'm 100% in, I'm fully in love. I mean, even with you and Joe, there's this undulation of choosing in again. And just because you're considering at any point to end a relationship, it doesn't mean it catches enough momentum to blow up. Sometimes it gives it the momentum to go deeper. And so to show my children that I have to jump in there.
SPEAKER_02That is like such a juicy like heart of the work piece that so many people fear is well, if it gets rocky, like we don't want it to get rocky. And so we don't have the hard conversations and we let it like slowly be starved. When you learn the tools to go deep into those conversations, to be honest. I mean, you I was just on the phone the other day with um Quinn. Joe and I had gone through something, another like, whoa, kind of moment. And it's hard at that moment to not let your brain go to like, oh my God, is this not right? Did we, you know, what's going on? And instead understanding this is a growth moment. This is because relationship, everybody thinks relationships gonna be your fairy tale ending, you're just gonna live happily ever after. No, you guys want some fucking growth. Go get in a relationship. That's the other thing we have been just sold is you're gonna get married and it's gonna be easier. In a lot of ways, it's harder because you now have this other individual, and like I said previously, and all of their nuances, their trauma, their stuff. But what I've seen with Joe is when it gets hard, because there is this deep underlying level that we have built of just love and trust for each other, it's not an indication that it's time to just throw it all away. It's an indication that we're both seeing shadows and places where there's healing. It's the whole like, you gotta let the light in kind of piece. And sometimes going through the pain to get to the other side. This is like that complex conversation where people are like, well, it's not all sunshine and roses. Yeah, it's it's it's not. But there is this level for us of having both the foundation that then allows us when the shadows come up, which they will, we both have a lot of things in our past that are still being resolved. Instead of that scaring us, we can find a bridge, we can be honest with each other, we can have the hard conversations and come through the other side.
SPEAKER_00Okay. So speaking of hard conversations, you did speak a little bit about fairs and how you do help women who are having affairs. And the way I heard it was women get into this place of paralysis and they're going through their lives like a robot. And compared to that, an affair where there is movement, there's awakening, there's something else happening rather than the robotic just wake up, live life, go to bed, that that's kind of preferable. I don't know if that's the right word. I don't want to put words in your mouth. But this person said, it is incredibly hurtful when a spouse has an affair. And that is an incredible understatement. We don't find ourselves when we hurt another, and then there's like 10 exclamation points. And so you talked about, you know, the person having the affair that this is growth for them, but didn't really mention this other side where there is a lot of pain.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah. And I'm I'm so glad that we get to talk about this because this was a piece that I will continue to learn more and more about. It's something that's constantly evolving. And I feel so lucky to get to have such an incredible viewpoint into this with my individual clients, um, with women in the community. So here's where I want to start. Yes, in an ideal world, we would not get growth from hurting other people. But I don't know about you all. This isn't, this isn't heaven. This is not perfect. It's really fucking messy down here on this planet with all the humans.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and it seems to be a feature, not a bug.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it really does. It does. And there's so much pain created when when we go into the mind fuck of thinking it should have been different or this shouldn't have happened, or if it would have just been this other way, I wouldn't be in so much pain. So when we come to the affair space, we have to be so compassionate around it because there's people on both sides of that coin. But I think we have to come back to the space of understanding that affairs are, like you said, instead of a bug, they are a feature. They seem to be something that humans have done for millennia. And saying we shouldn't do them isn't helping it. In fact, it usually all the shame and the guilt just makes it even more twisted. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I think that you never denied that it's painful for the spouse that is being cheated on.
SPEAKER_02This and this goes down into the deep, deep like what's the most painful, I think, is living out of integrity. And when you live out of integrity, you hurt people. That's kind of you hurt yourself, you hurt others. So them saying you never get growth out of hurting other people. I'm like, no, that's not true. Growth, growth comes in all sorts of forms. It'd be lovely if it only came in beautiful, like I go have a conversation, I explain ahead of time that I'm not happy and we need to leave the marriage. And but everybody's journeys are their own. And some of them involve, in fact, the majority of them involve pain, involve confusion, involve messiness.
SPEAKER_00I think there's this assumption in this comment that not having an affair means there's no pain. Whereas it's like staying together means there's no pain because divorce equals pain. But the fact is, the human condition is painful. I don't know anyone who has gotten out of this without pain.
SPEAKER_02I love the affair discussion because man, is it so heated? And boy, are there just like I don't think enough resources around discussing it in a very nuanced approach. So to this individual, obviously they're on the side of the coin where the affair happened to them. And I want to acknowledge that there is a whole different level of pain there, right? When you are lied to, when there is dishonesty, when you are quote, cheated on. So it's not to say that there isn't. I mean, maybe a more appropriate thing is like there's pain on both sides, and there is an opportunity for growth on both sides, even with the pain. And my advice to this person would be the work is doing deep work around the victimhood villain roles that we end up falling into when things like this happen and we don't have the tools, right? And where I'm speaking, when I say like affairs are growth, I'm speaking to a lot of the women that have had affairs and been totally villainized, told that they are evil and bad, and are currently villainizing themselves for that choice. This individual's work is the opposite side of that coin. It is understanding that in playing the victim, they are not getting into the nuances of the growth available to them in realizing they deserve something else. Obviously, a different partner. If this partner that is with them does not want to be with them, and that is painful to see, and you probably have gone into a whole bunch of stories about what it meant about you and who you are, and all those pieces, which you can hear is not what I'm mainly coaching on, but I know there's a coach out there somewhere for you, or a therapist. There's your growth. There's your work. And yes, I'm sorry. Let's just, I'm sorry, it is painful what humans do to each other. It is painful living in a world where we have been taught to not be in our integrity. And then we take make choices and we take actions that hurt people we want to be there for or should be there for, putting that in air quotes, because of the commitments we made to them that no longer really match what's on the ground happening in that marriage. Okay. So with that said, I want to discuss a little bit in the episode. We brought up, I think in the episode there was a dialogue that made second marriages kind of sound like, ooh, the thing you want to avoid. Like, do this work so you don't end up in a failed second marriage. And that was one of the pieces coming off the episode where I really once again wanted to come in with the compassion around the messiness of having a human life and your path unfolding like it does. Because I know there are going to be women listening to this who are currently in second marriages going, yeah, fuck. And so I really try to not hold up standards, right? Expectations, ideas of like, well, a good life means you you only have one divorce and you manage to never get divorced again. No. You know, my ultimately, I think where I can land is a good life is one where you are living your soul calls. And whatever path that has taken you on, that's the path you were called to do.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, but I do want to acknowledge, similar to the affairs element, that yes, when we make these choices from places that are not in integrity with our soul calls, there is collateral that can build and get difficult. Right? A second marriage and getting divorced and out of a second marriage, we're not gonna not act like that's not tough or that there isn't pain and a process with that. So this just goes back to the heart of really coming to know who you are and what you desire most, not because you want to avoid a second marriage or, you know, avoid divorce, but so that you can live the life that feels really, really good for you going forward.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think that sometimes there's this expectation that okay, you do the the work, whatever the work looks like, and then life is easy or life is always happy, or the marriage was painful for so the divorce life will be great. I want to share a couple of comments that I think describe this. So this woman says, She described me, I'm ex-Mormon and divorced the father of my children many years ago. The marriage was the worst experience of my life. The divorce was awful too. My three kids suffered a lot. First with an unhappy mom, then a broken family. It was sad for all involved. So it looks like it sounds to me like there was pain and then there was pain, and now there's pain. And so, in deciding, in considering divorce, if there's pain in the marriage and there's pain inside you, it doesn't necessarily get better by eliminating the spouse. Like pain seems to be something that we get to deal with as humans. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And what I hear there is when you don't have tools to support you through that pain, the pain is worse. I mean, the reason I became a considering divorce coach is because my best friend at the time was going through coach training and coached me through the divorce process. And I saw holy shit, this is making a huge difference. Her helping me manage my mind, her, at the time I didn't know how to like regulate, but just seeing my thoughts, being able to have that awareness reduced a lot of extra suffering. And this is the difference between pain and suffering. Like, yeah, we we as humans with these incredibly complex brains add in so much more suffering through the mismanagement of our brains, through the thoughts we think and beat ourselves up with and whip ourselves with repeatedly, that can make the process that much harder. Like, yes, there's a baseline level of pain, but a lot of what I'm teaching my women is how to move through that pain, how to work with that pain, how to not let their brains add massive amounts of suffering on top of all of that pain. That then, I mean, this, you know, if we want to know why divorce has historically been demonized so much, it's that right there. You have people coming out of really rough marriages that don't have the tools, that don't have the grounding in themselves. Then you go through this process and you're not able to really like build something new for years. Like you're you have no way to get your feet up underneath you. And so you're just in like, oh, oh, we're still just like bleeding out.
SPEAKER_00Yes, yes. And this woman says, it's been 20 years since my divorce, and it has taken every minute of that time to recuperate from that process. And I think that's one of the reasons women will even avoid considering divorce because this is the example that we've had, that it is so destructive to your psyche. But I think that what coaching does and what a community does is that it can hold you. And we there's so much in coaching where you don't even know that what you are thinking is just a thought. You think that's the way the world is. Like this man didn't text me, so that means this. It's A to B. And the coach can go, is that really what that means? Could it mean something else? It kind of gives you space to kind of explore your thoughts and what is real, what is not. Because I think in the silence of considering divorce on your own, you get into this echo chamber and paralysis, and you live in this future where it is all pain and the children are in pain, and you're in pain, and your spouse is in pain, and everybody's in pain, but it's living within you, and there's no place to get it questioned or explored.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I'm so grateful that woman commented that because I think that is an unnecessary tragedy.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_02That is my approach, and that is the work that I am so passionate about furthering in the world is we should not have such a lack of resources around divorce that there are individuals going through it who for the next 20 years of their life are recovering. Right. That is that is really, really rough. And I know it's not necessary because I've seen the opposite. Yes. I've seen women who, and it's not like it takes forever to learn those tools. I've had women coach with me, you know, in that deep dive three-month container, where having a compassionate witness in me, learning those tools, learning how to support themselves, how to trust themselves. Yeah, if you don't trust yourself, which I I get it, most of us have been taught not to, and then you are out of a marriage into the world, the void of the world. Holy shit, that sounds terrifying. You and I both thrived after our divorces because we knew how to manage our minds.
SPEAKER_00Yes. And I think it's important to note it speaks more, her suffering over 20 years speaks more to society than it does to her. Because she probably used the tools that were available to her. But like you said, there's this dearth of support when half of the marriages are ending. Why are we not putting a lot of support to just help people through that process so they're not these emotional zombies going forward?
SPEAKER_02And I think the answer hidden to that question is religion.
unknownMmm.
SPEAKER_02You know, religion emphasizes you have to stay married. This overemphasis on marriage, even in government, like people. We need to stay married. Yes. And I and it's like the biggest, you know, soft spot in my heart is for all the rest of us. Like fuck all the people staying married. Fuck all the people who seem to be happy and that's working out for them. There is and and you know, it's it's not even 50% now. The numbers have dropped. I'd have to go look them up. But still the amount of marriages that are that end in divorce and then the ones that just go through the rocky patches of considering. Yeah. We need way more resources than just stay married. Yeah. And and the tools I'm teaching are not, I think the resources that we've had historically are like go to marriage therapy. And that tool, it's like using a hammer on a screw. Yeah. Like that, it's not the tool for the issue because what I see is the issue is not we need to save the marriage. The issue is we've got two people really hurting and like not even aware of what they want, not able to speak their desires, breakdowns in communication. That when you're coming from a space of let's save the marriage, you're just telling them to get back in the box. You're not addressing the root causes of who are you? What do you want? Does this even fit anymore? And can we find a way together? Once we have that, once we know who you are, then we can maybe work towards the space of let's create a new container for this.
SPEAKER_00So what I'm hearing from you is that we need to be resourcing individuals as individuals. Forget the box instead of our goal is to fit you back into the box. It's dismantle the box. Let's see if we want to build something else out of what the box gave us, but not necessarily so. Let's like push that off to the side, resource the individuals involved first, primarily, foundationally. And then we get to see what can come from that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And that's why if you if all you received, which like you said, she she probably used the resources she was given. But the resources she was given were just like, okay, well, now you're leaving this box. So good luck. That is not what I do with my women. Like we are heavily resourcing. They are not making that decision if it if it is gonna leave until they can feel in their body like it's a it's okay, it's a go. And it's never a like, oh yay, it's a go. It's a like, fuck, it's a go. I'm terrified. And they have enough stability in themselves to make that move and to have the pain build them.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02You know, this is the whole, we know pain builds muscles. You don't go to the gym and build muscles by not breaking down those old muscles. Yeah. So there's a whole process available. There's a whole bunch of muscles that can be built that make the weight you're gonna have to lift, the things you're gonna have to go through if you do get divorced, which we don't sugarcoat, that can make it easier, not because it's easier, but because you're stronger going into it ahead of time.
SPEAKER_00Yes. And when I think of this woman with 20 years, or the earlier comment that it was so painful for my children as well, I'm thinking of situations like mine where my spouse I think is very mentally unhealthy and I still have exposure to him. He still has contact with some of my children. And these same tools are what help me. It doesn't mean that I don't get triggered. I mean, a week ago I was sent into an emotional flashback when he sent a threat to my phone. And for a good 24 hours, I was there trying to process, trying to feel safe again, trying to figure out my response. But it didn't go past that. I now have the tools that I learned going through my divorce and pre-divorce, because for people that don't know, when Britta first coached me, I chose to stay. I really leaned into owning that marriage and staying for myself. And I'm really glad that I did. I like my decision. And when I chose to leave, it was also from a deep place of knowing. But those same tools are the tools that you use to learn to process emotion, to question your thoughts. What am I making this mean? Am I really unsafe? Who, what support do I need? And in my case, with my ex, I've I've needed to involve police. I've needed to involve the courts in order to stay safe. And so these aren't just tools to walk you out of your marriage. It can be tools to walk you deeper into your marriage. It can be tools that you use in your friendships, in your professional life. I just wish the tools of how to manage our minds were taught just at the basic level, all the way through our education system.
SPEAKER_02Same. And I think what we're discussing is when you are empowered in yourself. That's what makes it you more able to weather the storms. I mean, uh it has not been a fairy tale for either one of us post-divorce. Yeah. Yeah. That is not what we are talking about. Um but we have been able to weather all the ups and downs of that because of that deep foundation of empowerment in ourselves that we invested in ahead of time.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I want to ask you specifically about your experience of having a the two people involved in the discussion with you, Mayam and Jonathan, it sounds like they have very coming from very different perspectives. Yeah. Both very smart, very articulate. And it was interesting in the comments on YouTube, some people saying um disparaging things and supportive things about both of their points of view. But I want to read through a thread. These are three separate comments. The first comment is wow, some of Jonathan's comments are so very rooted, patriarchal, condescension, dare I say, oblivion. The next comment underneath that was, it's too much interruption as well, which kind of made me laugh because people don't usually go after the men for interrupting. But the it seems like it seems like someone's there, like, hey, sit down, Jonathan. And then the last one in this, he's much better than the vast majority of straight white, cisgender American men already, though. His questions come from where he is in life, just like everyone else. If Dr. Balak hadn't explained the contextual use of patriarchy, it would have gone nowhere. And there were other people that were like, thank God Jonathan was there to keep these women on track. And so again, with the expectations and how are we showing up? But I loved that he was coming in with this very different perspective than what I have or what you have. Yes. And his nostalgia. Can you talk about him going, oh, if I get divorced, we don't have these shared memories?
SPEAKER_02And so Jonathan had this moment where he's talking about like, it's so sad. Once you get divorced, your memories even go away. And this ability to just kind of talk to each other and make a decision together goes away because now you've got other people involved. And as I was listening to the episode post, I was like, oh, this is not the grief I was talking about. But I can see how this is the grief many men feel coming out of a divorce.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And it really beautifully highlights the disconnect. You guys can be in the same marriage and having a totally different experience.
SPEAKER_00Yes. Women that's a good point.
SPEAKER_02Women are not necessarily grieving a connection that's lost. Because most of them, most of the women I'm coaching, by the time we get to this point, that connection has been gone for a while. Yeah. A long while. Um so the experience of grief for a woman is more, and obviously I'm speaking in general terms here.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02But it's more a loss of the hope that things will change. Yes. Yes. You know, that just the indomitable hoping that we will find a way through, that the confusing conversations will one day lead to clarity, that this person will see me. Many of us have childhood trauma around not being seen or understood. So we replay that with our partner of maybe if I say it differently, maybe if I say it this way, maybe if I do it this way, we'll find a way through or we'll find a way into connection. And that is a really tough thing to finally go. Yes.
SPEAKER_00Deep acceptance of who that person is. And that that so beautifully describes my experience of divorce, that I didn't cry over the divorce, like I shed no tears, but there was this deep sadness in this acceptance of this is who this person is. He yeah, he doesn't, he has a challenge with telling the truth. That's not gonna change. This is who he is. So this final, this is who he is, this is who he's choosing to be. And talked about it enough. This is who he is.
SPEAKER_02And often along the other side of that coin is deep, y'all. It's one thing to say, like knowing yourself and knowing your soul calls that makes it sound so pretty. But there's also deep grief when you realize, oh, I need more. The creature, the creature that I am maybe doesn't fit in this world in the ways I thought it was going to, or in the the world of this marriage and this container. And to choose me is going to mean the loss of all the people that love me conditionally only if I fit in this container in this specific way. It's going to mean walking a path where other people don't understand me or get me. And those people may be my parents. Those people may be my grown children.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02That is also, I think for women, that is more the grief that we're discussing. I feel like if we were on the episode right now with Maya and Jonathan, they'd be like, what? Like nobody talks about that being the grief that for a lot of women, it's not a grief that the marriage is ending because there's a lot of happiness and goodness and closeness that's already dead by this point. But it is now this is me and this is the path.
SPEAKER_00And ooh. Yeah, I think that's such a good point. And that other point that you made, where when a man sees the marriage crumbling and then suddenly he starts doing all the things. Then he's father of the year, and he's what do you need? I'm gonna show up. And for the woman, it doesn't feel genuine, it doesn't feel authentic, it feels like a further level of manipulation to keep her face rather than from a place of authentic love and I want to show up no matter what.
SPEAKER_02And then there's so much grief there as well. Yes. Because when you have been mistreated by someone who for years you have been asking and pleading, and you get down to the very, very end of your rope, and it's not till the very end of your rope that they're like, oh, you're leaving, I'll do these things. Yeah. There is a lot of resentment and a feeling of betrayal and and like kind of said that of like, this isn't for me, this is for you. That's a very complicated grief, too, especially when I've seen, you know, there are a lot of women, like I said, that are hoping that their partner really does love and see them, really wants to be with them. And so when they start showing up and doing all these things, it doesn't actually feel like, oh, you want to be with me. It feels like it's not until I'm literally dying that you're willing to show up for me. And that is that is pain.
SPEAKER_00Yes. Okay. You mentioned a a phrase I hadn't heard before. And I want you to kind of expand. Here's the comment about it. She says, and and she puts in quotes, functional freeze response, unquote, dot, dot, dot, especially in small town USA with capital no support system, dot, dot, dot. So I want you to talk to the women out there who resonated with that idea. First, I want you to tell us what functional freeze response is. And then for these women who feel like I have no support where I live, oh yeah. Obviously, I think they should join your community. But and you know, deep dive on your podcast.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00But is there anything else that you can offer them? So, first tell us what is functional freeze response.
SPEAKER_02At the heart of it, it is when a person feels very stuck and unable to act freely internally, even though outwardly they appear functional. And if that does not just sound like a living hell, you have not experienced it.
SPEAKER_00It sounds like um that lives of Mormon wives, real lives of Mormon wives. That's what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_02Oh my god. Yes.
SPEAKER_00My dear face, so it looks perfect, but behind the scenes, I am losing.
SPEAKER_02Well, and so it's it is a survival mechanism that is it typically comes up when like you've got chronic stress or trauma, which who do you know? I'm like, oh my God, in so many of us considering divorce, this is the reality.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, and you notice it like so many women come to me, and the main feeling they talk about is I'm stuck. I'm stuck. Like, I just can't move left or right, being frozen kind of inside, and that sense of like the numbness that is a paralyzation of your ability to trust yourself, your ability to know. Makes me think of when Jonathan said, like, well, how can you make a decision if the internal signal is broken? You know, how can you get a signal if the internal box isn't functioning to send the signal? Welcome to what it feels like to live in functional freeze.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02My internal knowing has been broken by the systems I was raised in. So now I'm not really attached to my body, to myself. I'm moving through the world and showing up, but there's no juice to my life, there's no real feeling. Heads up, a lot of you that have had affairs, this is where, like, whoa, it's like a jolt to that internal system. And I've seen it for women break them out of that functional freeze because it's like, oh my God, I feel alive again. So uh understanding the intensity of this experience for so many women, and that nobody talks about it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Like outwardly, you can be the PTO president. You are just doing all the things at school. You've got, you're performing your daily tasks, you're maintaining the social interactions. Outwardly, you look very composed. I mean, this was me a thousand percent. I looked like I had the most perfect life ever. And internally, there was like black tar drowning me inside that I couldn't even fully comprehend. So it's a very disconnected, out-of-body state. You often feel very exhausted, like deep down, but you also have like high energy because you're trying to like always get away from those feelings. There's a lot of anxiety, there's a lot of panic and a lot of feelings of just existential kind of dread and difficulty making decisions. And she said she was from a small town, right? Small town, no support.
SPEAKER_00But looking at your life, yes, you live in this place outside of Dallas. And so, like, there's a lot of people, but your world was very small. Within Mormonism, our world is the people within the congregation, usually, especially as a stay-at-home mom. So you're not out in the world. You may have come in contact with people at your kids' school, but not in close relationship where there is someone that you could talk to about this. You're showing up within your church callings, you're showing up in your marriage, showing up, showing up, showing up, drowning inside. So you two were in kind of this small town, no support. And I think most women, even if they were in a big city, it would feel like in this kind of a situation, drowning in tar, it feels like small town, no support. So I love that she included that because I think that's the feeling of going through this as well, no matter how many people you know.
SPEAKER_02Because you are not gonna go talk to your women that you know on the PTO about the black tar inside you.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02That's that's just not a conversation. It is a it is a commentary. This this experience is a commentary on how much we as a society have lost community.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_02And Mayam talked about that in the podcast. We have lost community for both men and women. Um the community that many of us have, especially out here in the burbs. It's like, you know, you're drinking with your friends, uh, with the the couples are all going out for some drinks or hanging out on the back patio, talking about surface level stuff. But who are you actually talking to about the most deep, dark kind of parts of yourself?
SPEAKER_00Okay. So what would be a next step for someone who says, who says, I recognize this in myself. I'm at such a point, I feel like I can keep going, like I am. It's automatic, but I don't know that I even have it within me to consider another possibility.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, because this is the issue is making you're frozen in making decisions. So, number one, as I kind of said on the podcast, it's acknowledging validating that experience, just recognizing it and saying aloud, I think I'm in functional freeze.
SPEAKER_00Yes, it's like when you discovered CPTSD and you're like, oh my God, I've been experiencing this, but this person describes my experience so well. And I think we're seeing that in the comments. People saying, Brita Joe is talking to me. Okay, so now we have a term we can say, I see that in myself. I'm experiencing this.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Then we go into learning the tools and seeking professional help. Because this is the tough part of if the box is broken, how do we get the signal? We've got to go into places of support with others who can compassionately witness us, who can walk us back to ourselves, who can help us repair the box so that then we can figure out what is the signal. It's a very like chicken egg. Like you cannot know your answer of if you want to stay or go, if the box is broken. So we've got to go back into repairing the box. And the box really is like that relationship of trust with yourself. It's safe to know what I know, it's safe to feel. What I feel. And that process involves the grounding things we talked about. This is the embodiment we talked about on the episode. This is learning how your brain works through the specific coaching that you and I learned with the model. And then we use a lot of different things that we've been learning about in the community, right? Breath work and mindfulness and EFT. There's so many things out there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02That once, and so it's important though that you not get overwhelmed. So it's like finding just that next little right step.
SPEAKER_00Yes. I love that you said that because I and I also see this connection to the affairs part where it's like there's movement. And so, like you said, it's a jolt of freeze. And so, I mean, unless that's part of your path, it's not like a recommended path, is that you go start an affair.
SPEAKER_02No. If you are on, if you are considering having an affair, invest in working with a coach or like go get on a 90 minute, because like I've said on the podcast, it opens a whole other can of worms. For those of you that have already done it, okay, cool, let's move. We've got movement out of the freeze. But yeah, if you're considering, we've still got a chance to not have to do. I mean, that work will be this is the thing too about understanding the way your life unfolds and the work that's there for you. It's gonna come either way. That's what I've learned. Like, but yes, there are key moments in our life where we get to make decisions and we get to kind of do that work in one way or the other. So it doesn't have to be done through an affair. You don't have to go have an affair to wake up and reconnect with your body. And an affair isn't gonna just naturally give you that either.
SPEAKER_00Yes, exactly. And so the next right step, if you're in freeze. So if I go into myself and think of those times when I was in a free res freeze response, a podcast is what kind of pulled me out of that, seeing a different way to think, to view the world. And so creating different inputs into my life so that it kind of shook up and jumbled the way I was being in the world. That was really helpful. So I think listening to your podcast, um, if there's the means to hire professionals to help you, like you said, you had this incredible therapist that was able to help walk you back to yourself. Yeah. Community is a beautiful place to do this, your stay or go community, where every month we're doing work that some of it you do on your own, some of it you do in community with other people. I think that's a beautiful place to do that. And I think simply opening up, having the awareness that this is what I'm going through, and I'm opening to life, showing me a different exactly that sometimes serendipitously things will start to drop into your view where you're like, oh, I could make that my next step, which maybe it's belly dancing, or maybe it's a pottery class. Yeah, maybe it's a pottery class. Like there will be something that that just the next right step.
SPEAKER_02You'll feel that little spark inside you. And that's the beauty of like I meet women at all different parts of their journey with considering divorce. And this is gonna tie into, you know, at the end, Maya's saying, like, Brita says she has women who get on 90 minutes and like with one 90 minute session, no. And that seemed so counterintuitive to them because they're like, we just talked about how it's like a whole process to know. Yeah. But what I think is happening there, the 90 minute is so amazing for breaking you out of the functional freeze. It is like a jump start on the signal box.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02It is an intensive drop-in with me. We go through so much of the past history, where you want to be instead. It like gives you this big overview of all of it. And then I give you the next steps after, right? There's that PDF I send over that is like my roadmap for you that I have created specifically with like, here's the books to start reading, here's the people to start listening to. And for some women, the step from that 90 minute is going into the community. Because they've already had their box like jump started and now they're ready. I think if, you know, if you've never listened to the to my podcast or you have like you're just brand new here, it might be tempting to be like, I want to go into the community and I want to talk to a bunch of women. No, no, no, no, sweetie. You know, we don't necessarily need more voices and more people telling us what to do or seeing all the different options. Yeah. When we haven't had it jump started. So that was something I wanted really to get in on this episode is if you're someone that's just, just barely being exposed to me through the biolic breakdown, is give yourself some time. Go start listening to like, and and by time, I mean like maybe it's a couple days of you just binging the podcast. I've had women who are like, I just found your podcast a week ago. They're on a 90-minute with me and they're like, I have binged all of it. It is everything. We hit the 90-minute running and we are like ready to go into the community. Um so it's finding someone who can, or or that resource, right? That jolts your signal box back to life so that you can start receiving those little impressions of next step, next step, next step.
SPEAKER_00Yes. And I love that from the 90 minutes, it's not you setting yourself up as the expert in their lives. Rather, it's a self-centering of back to yourself. I'm inviting you back to yourself. You are the one with your answers. It's not outside of you. We're just going to clear away some of those cobwebs so that you know for you. And the next step after that might be a community. It might be therapy, it might be something else. But I love that self-centering.
SPEAKER_02It it can end up being doing the deep dive with me, the three-month coaching container, which is such an incredible gift because I get to walk through the entire process of doing that work with you. And what I've seen is women that I've taken through that three-month, you know, I'm just having that image of that woman saying, I spent 20 years after my divorce trying to get over that. Yeah. Like, yeah, that is what I do in those three months is like, let's make sure that never happens to you. Let's make sure that whatever decision you're making, you are ready for it. You are resourced in yourself. You have a connection. The signal box is strong. And I have women that at the end of those three months, the signal box is strong enough. They make the decision and they're off onto that next piece of their journey. And then I have women that it's like, I need more. I need to drop in further. So everybody's at different points in the journey when it comes to considering. And it's just trusting if you'll just take that baby next step where you where you don't where I have so much compassion for and where it is the hardest is just staying and spinning in the functional freeze for years and years and years.
SPEAKER_00Yes, yes. And so if a woman says, I don't know that I want to spend the money that's expensive to have you coach me. I always think, compared to what? Compared to what? I mean, you've been, you've coached women, some clients you've had for years. Yeah. And some clients, I think one client had told you, what else am I going to do with this money? Put it into my 401k, and then I have a little bit more money than I have.
SPEAKER_02For this, for yeah, for this life that I hate and this marriage that I don't want to begin. But yay, I have a little bit more money to spend when I get there. Yeah. This is once again, this goes back to the Western ideas of efficiency. Oh, the goal is just to have more, not how does it actually feel, how does it land in your body. I have learned, and you and I both have done lots of work over the last five years around our money beliefs to understand for me personally, just having a bunch of money and no soul in your life, like no soul connection to yourself in that environment. So that when you say, you know, what's when people are like, oh, this is too expensive. I'm like, you're in the value system of capitalism. Money is what matters most. And if you, if you can't see the importance of investing in yourself, then it's gonna take a little bit more time. See you in a couple of years.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And it may not even be that they don't value it. Some women wish they had those resources to spend on that. And they just don't. And that's where a free podcast drops.
SPEAKER_02The podcast is gonna come in. And the community, which is why I would say if that is you, start saving up for a 90 minute.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Or, you know, we at this point, we're still allowing women to come into the community without a 90 minute, depending on the influx that we have, just because I have realized like as much as I am an incredible one-on-one coach and the 90 minutes are amazing, the gem of my work is the community.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02You and I both recently vibed about how amazing that space is and the women within it and the way they are showing up so vulnerably and open. So it is a space that I feel very called to be very intentional with how I open it, who I open it to, making sure that the women coming in are ready to be in that space, to not just drain from that space we can have, which can happen sometimes when you are just in like a free fall and you have no resourcing in yourself, which is why I'm like, let's get on a 90-minute, let's get you the journey ahead so you can start knowing and ordering the books and reading the things to be ready to not only receive in that place, but also give.
SPEAKER_00Yes, yes. So I wanted to go to another comment where this woman says, I think many women stay in relationships, not because they're deeply emotionally entangled, but because they lack financial freedom. We were raised to support men, to cheer them on from the sidelines while putting our own ambitions on hold. By the time we realize this life isn't what we wanted, we're often financially dependent without the skills or experience to fully support ourselves. It's not about being weak, not how to start over. It's about being structurally sidelined. If we had our own careers, our own income, our own sense of professional agency, it would be so much easier to say, this isn't working for me, and leave. Women know how to rebuild. We know how to create life, how to nurture, how to rise. The system just wasn't built for us to thrive freely in it. Boom. Like drop, right? Wow. It is not, the system wasn't built for us to thrive freely in it.
SPEAKER_02I feel that. Yeah. And I want this to kind of be our final piece to this episode is this is the world I want to change going forward. This is, you know, I have an episode where I talk about like the stay or go vision going forward, which is I hear you. That's the world I came out of as well. I did not leave my marriage with a career. I did not leave my marriage with the ability to go financially take care of myself. I feel incredibly grateful. And I do think it's part of my life path that I had the the Quinn's gonna be mad at me if I call it a gift. But I had I had earned, I had earned, you know, uh I had a partner who was in investment banking. So I had the money to be able to invest in myself a lot at the beginning, which thank God, because now I get to return that incredible investment I made in myself with this world I want to create. And I am creating in the community, in the podcast of saying, let's all level together, those of us that have more to, you know, maybe have a little bit more privilege, right? That's what I had. I had the privilege of being white and being married to a man who was a high earner. I took that privilege, I invested in myself and a vision to create resources to remediate and change the fundamental issues of the system we are built in that is not built for women.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02To provide resources like the podcast in the future. I hope to have more resources. We were just talking yesterday about me potentially creating a Chad GPT that would be a more cost-effective way to receive coaching from something that is programmed like me, right? The vision is to help all women, no matter what privilege or amount of money you've received, to be supported in making that decision. Yeah. I so, I so appreciate her putting in the most incredible terms what both you and I faced.
SPEAKER_00Yes. Yes. And it describes a lot of the fear as a woman, knowing the the patriarchy, the systems that be, the churches, the government, the capitalism, they like women in a certain place in society to uphold those institutions so that the institution runs well at the cost of our life.
SPEAKER_02And so there is a lack of resources to help those women be able to really make aligned decisions that feel good for them. Makes me think too, especially for this specific comment. I think an incredible episode to go listen to is the one where I interview Stephanie. So you can go back through. I'll even have my assistant link this in the show notes. But that is an incredible story of pretty much, I think she was like my first, one of my very, very first clients. I mean, y'all. I coached her when I was a baby coach.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And the fortitude that it took. And that's where I that's what I really want to land on at the end here, is just like some fucking admiration for the women out there, all y'all that face these indomitable odds and still decide to ask the questions, still decide to go into the darkness of considering and ask like trying to sort and sift, even with the at times absolutely crushing and paralyzing overhanging fear of knowing the system is not built to help me. I mean, if that is not the core wound right now that is being enacted on our political stage, the fight for are we just going to keep giving our energy to supporting the billionaires and to the system that feeds the wealthiest?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02The people in power? Or are we going to start grass-level, like taking that back, nurturing each other, being there for each other, taking the resources we have, and instead of pouring them into millionaire mansions, being like, what can I build? What can I build that will also shelter others who have less than me? Oh getting strong, strong Jesus vibes, y'all. And y'all know if you listen to the podcast, that's a the that's a unique little feeling for me. But yeah, it's about it's about taking if if the system isn't here to take care of us, then we take care of each other. We support each other. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And that's a really beautiful thing to be a part of. It is. It is. Thank you, brother. Thank you for this. I appreciate it.
SPEAKER_02Thank you, Quinn, man, y'all. Did you get such a gem of an episode from us? We actually paused this halfway, and Quinn was like, How are you doing? Do you think we're good? And I was like, No, I still have so many more things that I want to say that if we don't say in this episode will probably never be said. But I feel like we covered an incredible range of topics, of um ideas. So incredibly grateful for everybody that commented. I have a newfound appreciation for the beauty of the range of comments. Yeah. And being able to address all of the gorgeous, messy facets of the human experience.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Agree. I'm obsessed. Just nom nom nom nom nom. All right, y'all. This is amazing. Before I get off, I do want to say, because I'm learning, y'all, I'm learning to do a better job of speaking about the options at the end of my podcast. That was something I was learning, watching Miami's them doing their sponsorships. I was like, oh, this is our that ADHD podcast Quinn knows I've been listening to. I've noticed how she's like just always providing the resources and offerings that she has. So I'm trying to get better at that. Please know y'all, we will have links at the end of the episode that will take you directly to that 90-minute session. In fact, if you want to, you can just text 90MIN to 3377, and that will take you straight over to it. You can also text stay or go community to that 3377. That will pop you over there so you can read up on it. We've got an application process that you need to go through for that, but still, it's something to be keeping in your mind. And then popping over to my website for the deep dive, the three-month container that I do. I've had a couple spots open recently. And I am really excited to take more of you that are ready for the depth of that journey through it. I think I was telling Joe yesterday, it feels like being a soul doula. The work that we do, it is a lot of like birthing your soul into this new reality, finding its footing, helping it be able to communicate in the ways that many of us did not receive in childhood. So what's your web address? It's stayorgocoaching.com. I also want to make sure that I remind you to subscribe and to go rate the podcast. Also, Alex has gone and put all of our previous podcast episodes on YouTube. That is an incredible space to be able to actually see the conversations happening, see our faces, which I love. So please go subscribe there as well. Rate, comment. We appreciate hearing from you. This was kind of the first episode we've done where we got to reply to comments. I look forward to doing many more of them in the future. All right, y'all. Till then.