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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. Alright, y'all. This episode's gonna be a bit of an emotional one for me. And I am just going to embrace that. It has been a very dynamic or emotional week for me. And by dynamic, I mean lots of lows tend to also highs, lots of anger, lots of sadness, also, lots of bravery over this last week. Um and yeah, this episode is gonna be really most of all for those of you listening, um, that really felt as devastated this last week and um experienced this range of emotions with the results of the election in the US. And um, you know, I want to start the episode by just saying like I feel so lucky to get to add my voice to the dialogue right now out in the world because I can confidently say, like with a lot of certainty, that way more than most people, I have an intimate ground zero view of what patriarchy is actually doing to us, to both women and men in our world. And that's because I get to have intimate, very personal behind the scenes glimpses into relationships, into the point where women are coming to me so unhappy in their marriages that they are at the point of considering divorce. So um it feels really, I just want to take a moment to be like, yeah, I I absolutely have a right uh to speak in this space. Having coach women in these uh bots for over four years now, having seen the themes and the trends, having been calling this out for a while in my own coaching, and then this last year in my podcast, um, just trying to say, like, look, it is not selling everybody uh what it seems like it's selling. Um I want to start the episode off by saying that. Um, and to also say, you know, to those of you that may be listening that maybe were not devastated this last week or do not understand what all of this grief is about, I also feel like I have an incredible perspective on that as well. Because, you know, seven years ago, or even if you go back to like when Trump was elected the first time, um, I was very upset about him being um elected for who he was, but not so much about understanding the policies that would like affect me as a woman. I did not understand that piece. And I I knew why now looking back, I didn't understand that because in 2016 I was still married, I had not started therapy yet. I was really in the throes of just starting to wake up to the trauma I had experienced from the patriarchal um way of living that we have in our world at the moment here in America. And I was just starting to wake up to the very severe consequences and effects of that in my life. That that in me being asked, you know, in many ways, brainwashed and forced to abandon myself as a woman to fit into that world, I was just starting to wake up to the depression, the suicidal ideation, the having all the pretty things, having the money and the white privilege and the husband and the kids and all the things that look so nice, um, that actually on the inside were incredibly super fucking empty deep down underneath. Um and looking back now, I can see how, you know, all of that brainwashing from being in the Mormon cult, in a patriarchal world from birth and being taught, you know, in Mormonism, women uh women are not allowed to hold the priesthood, you know, only men are. Like that was just part of my world. And I was under the illusion of, you know, believing that men really are the ones that are supposed to be in power. Or as you know, my dear friend Quinn this last week told me one of her sisters said to her, like, oh, we can't have a woman as president, women are too emotional. I was just like, oh my God. This is just like the heart and soul of misogyny of women not seeing themselves being internally taught to hate themselves. So I also come from that perspective of having been someone who was raised heavily in that environment. And now through the epic journey I've been on, for those of you listening to the podcast over the last seven years, has a very, as you guys know now, a very different perspective. And as I just stated, an intimate view into what is actually, you know, what patriarchy is actually getting us in our relationship. Um, and so I just want to break that down. I'm not this episode is actually not gonna be, you know, the episode I'd originally planned. Y'all, I had an episode written earlier last week that was like standing strong against the tide, like protecting our freedoms. It was very go, go, go. And so I do need to take some a little bit of time at the beginning of this episode just to like, as I'm doing now, to express some of that. But the majority of the episode is going to be actually a very different feeling where I kind of landed today and something that's come up throughout all of last week. But I do just want to illuminate a little bit more some of these things that I've seen that I think need to be said for sure. Um, and that's understanding that, you know, when I keep saying I have a particular special view into what patriarchy is actually creating, that's because I get to get on calls with women where over and over and over, why they are wanting to leave their marriages are these very things, are feeling repressed in their individuality, feeling like they cannot be in a you know fully expressed um mutuality where the power dynamics are you are an equal, I am an equal setup. More and more, I'm seeing women in like strong gender-rolled marriages not being able to swallow that anymore. Um and these these dynamics, these power imbalances that ultimately harm everyone. And and that's because it may seem like it's so great to be on top, but what I'm seeing is these men are getting um the things that they want, not from a space of true connection and loyalty, uh, but from fear. And I don't see that being where I I want that to not be the world that we are headed into, a world where we continue to be okay with allegiance just from fear. And like I said, I see um over and over women that are saying like no more, that are awake enough to say, I want to be with someone that I actually respect rather than I'm just afraid of. And like the number one thing that is ending these marriages is this feeling of having partners that are stunted and emotionally immature, and these really toxic old guard, that's what I'm gonna call it, power dynamics that actually end up destroying the real intimacy and trust that I believe all humans are deeply hungry for. Um and this is really, I'm gonna probably do an episode on this in the future as I dive more deeply into this, but I want to make clear that when I say patriarchy, I do not mean masculinity. Because I think we deeply need, I know, I don't think, I know we need mature masculinity more than ever right now. What I am speaking of is the immature boy psychology of patriarchy that is quote, the stunted masculine fixated at immature levels using abusive and violent acting out behaviors against others. And that is why hopefully framing this out for those of you that maybe weren't as devastated by those results last week, this is what I this is what that election meant to me. It came it that choice landed for me as my country choosing, as over half of the country choosing to uphold and be for those kinds of relationships. Um, and it was very difficult to have the illusion removed, right? The illusion that we were ready for more mutuality, for more um being able to respect and and meet people eye to eye instead of these power over dynamics. And I went through vacillations of moments of just like deep, deep despair, and then moments of just like, okay, let's go. We've got this. Um I'm ready. I've got, you know, I'm already doing the work and I will do more of the work. Um but where I have ultimately landed today or this week was just this deep permission to slow down and to pause and to feel. So I want to move into the rest of the episode by gently inviting those of you listening to really just take a deep breath and let go of any pressure right now to be strong or productive or to stand up and push back, um, and instead to just create a space where it is okay to be tired, to grieve, and to feel the weight of things as they are. Because for those of us that have been doing the work, right, I think seven years ago, I wouldn't have I didn't feel this grief because I wasn't doing the work. I wasn't trying to change things, I wasn't trying to stand up for women's voices. Um, I was in that world of being protected by proximity to patriarchy. Um, and now I've taken a very different path. Getting divorced, being a single woman, um, you know, not being part of a patriarchal cult anymore, which only protects the women that are in it. Um, I understand more now what it feels like to be in a system that does not protect you, to um feel in a very tiny way, right? I'm waking up to what so many people in our world have felt for hundreds of years, you know, and I'm speaking specifically of LGBTQ individuals, of African American, of Latino and Latinas, like wow, wow, what a different feeling it is when you wake up to living in a country where you're like, oh my god, I really don't think the government is here to protect me. Um and so for those that have been doing this work, and I I want to like honor and respect that there are so many out there that have been doing this far, far, far, far longer than me. To just say though, to those of us in that space that have been doing the work, and like I said, mine's only been like the last five to seven years of actually doing the hard work of waking up to my racism, waking up to my misogyny, waking up my white privilege, and being willing to put myself in on, you know, to put myself on the line to speak out. Um, I actually was like attacked this last week when I spoke up in um uh a conscious community that I was a part of. I'm no longer now. I was vehemently attacked by men in that community that I was being clear, were using these modes of silencing women's voices and um trying to make it seem like they they shouldn't be bringing their sadness here because it needs to be a safe space. And when I called it out, once again I saw just how much the patriarchy is alive and well, that toxic boy psychology of I will scream at you, yell at you, fight you down, tell you you're insignificant, tell you we don't need you here, minimize your pain, and call you a liar to ultimately silence you. So I am getting, once again, like even more of a taste of the illusion being taken away, right? I think I also thought in that community, because it was what I would consider more of a conscious community, that that would be a different response and just be the response I got was like, wow, nope, we we are still very much in the throes of all of this. And so where I came to was just wanting to normalize like the exhaustion and the heaviness of when you are doing like your own work to feel trauma, to be different, to try and create a better world, um, and that it is normal to feel that exhaustion and heaviness, that these are valid responses when you are confronted with a world that has been painful, and that um, you know, by by the current choices being made will move into even more pain. Um, you know, and and that is just I do believe that is part of like consciousness evolving and consciousness growing up. Sometimes we have to go into more pain uh to be ready to get out. And that was really my journey, right? I it was only through my own pain, through my own the system not working for me and actually leading me to a place of deep, deep darkness and unhappiness. Wow, I've got everything the patriarchy said I should have. I'm a mom, I'm a wife, I have a fuck ton of money. And then being like, I'm more miserable than I've ever been, that I was finally willing, right? Willing to do the hard deep dive of looking at the unpretty parts of myself, of my history, of my uh lineage as a white woman. Um, so I really think that this pause that I hope we'll get to do a little bit in this episode is powerful and actually a huge act of strength in itself. To just instead of rushing immediately into the we will overcome and we will succeed and we will triumph, to just pull back in and to grieve together and allow space for really acknowledging the weight that those of us that are doing the work feel in this moment. So I wanted to share with you all um one of the ways that this really came up for me was um noticing this week just how like it really depends on the day how I end up feeling when I wake up. And on Sunday morning, um I really woke up once again with just this like deep sadness. I could actually tell um I was already in an emotional flashback, which makes a lot of sense. You know, I've I've realized that having Trump be elected actually um takes me back to a lot of like my my childhood feelings of having a person in power over me that does not care about my feelings, that does not care about my desires, and that ultimately can do whatever they want. So that was what was really prompting that feeling of like fear and hopelessness and helplessness that morning. So I got up to journal and try and kind of coach myself through what was happening, and I found myself writing, I'm too fucked up to fix all of this. And as I started to explore that thought, I realized there was just a lot of grief coming up. And this is like a typical, I would say this is like a typical survivor of abuse response, right? Of because you can't fix the external, you start to internalize that all that self-hate, that kind of like self-hatred, right? Of like, I'm too fucked up, the problem is me. Um and instead, like really trying to sit with some of my own grief around my trauma from the system. Um, grief that I had, I'm experiencing a lot of difficulty at the moment with understanding like how to parent my son, my 14-year-old son. And I'm just seeing more and more how complex his emerging manhood is and grieving the world he's growing up in and what it is teaching him about being a man and how unprepared I feel to be able to hold space for that while also doing all the other things that I'm trying to do in my life. This is the whole like, I'm raising myself while I'm simultaneously raising him, while I'm making space for other women, raising themselves. Like it was just a lot. Um, and so after I kind of opened up and kind of leaned into the like, okay, like this is me, maybe not in the space so much of like I'm fucked up, and but in the like, I am imperfect and this is what is. I then moved into the space where I started to question that thought of like I'm too fucked up to fick all of this. And I really sat with fear and like looked at that dragon of like, oh my god, I really can't. Like, as much as my strong, like Capricorn moon, Capricorn ascendant is like, I got this. If I just believe it enough, if I just work hard enough, it will change. I had to sit with like, oh my god, like on my own, I cannot change the whole world. It's too big. I cannot be everything to everyone. I cannot be everything for my kids and everything for the collective and everything for the entire world. And as I sat with that and really kind of questioned that feeling, I was. able to start setting down this pressure that had been building all week to like have to rise up and fix it all again. And I really want us to like notice and reflect on this collective nature of this pain that I think is especially for especially poignant for women of this feeling like for centuries women have been pushed to keep going to serve to withstand to dig deep they are always the ones that are scraping the bottom of the bowl so that everybody else gets what they need. They are always the ones doing the emotional caretaking the emotional you know processing of the collective and to in this moment to just feel my right to say that for right now to to feel almost kind of like the beauty in just sitting with my grief and my feelings of I can't fix all of this without forcing myself to get up again to transform to pull another you know miracle out of the shit storm. And where this led me was this beautiful moment where I went into my partner after I'd kind of like acknowledged like oh my God like I can't fix all of this. I literally just can't I am a human. I don't have enough to fix all of the things in the world um I went in and found my partner and I was like I just need to cry and I buried like buried he was in bed and I just buried myself like up under his armpit like down in his ribs and I just cried and then I started to pour it all out to him and it was such a beautiful moment to watch him so I know he's been hurting a lot this week as well and I think both of us have been just kind of like doing what we do which is stepping up and holding space for others. And so as I started to really pour out the like I can't be everything and I can't do this anymore a little bit more of like the like a a little bit of a I wouldn't say a full loss of hope but a like I'm just gonna be in the full overwhelm and grief right now of what this moment means. And he got a little triggered I could hear it in his voice with the like you got to hang on and like there's going to be better and like we can do this. And I could feel his body tightening and I was so just proud of the relationship we've built that in that moment I just said to him hey I don't need you to fix this right you see how he was doing the same thing like that he needed to fix me in that moment and that was so overwhelming for him I said I don't need you to fix this I just need you to witness me in my pain and overwhelm right now and it was so beautiful I felt his body softening I felt our bodies soften into each other and he just let me cry and it was amazing how just letting myself be sad letting myself be overwhelmed by that without trying to fix or feel hopeful or any of those other things was actually the very thing that opened that and made it possible. It was so wild y'all like in that moment as he let me just be fully seen with no fixing I felt the full grief come through it didn't even last that long and then I just felt that merging of our hearts together that feeling for both of us of the like and we're gonna be okay kind of thing without having to force it right without the like from the very start we're gonna be okay we're gonna be okay so I really wanted to emphasize in this episode the power of holding this kind of space for those we love right now that are grieving this that there is so much power in the very simple but profound act of holding space for one another whether that is just you know being quiet and hearing someone or simply sitting in silence you know holding another person. And to really say like I want to offer that we we just don't need to immediately go into answers or strategies right now and that sometimes like the most healing thing is simply knowing that we are not alone in how we feel that was the moment and it and Joe even you know said as he was holding me like he admitted when I said I don't need you to fix this right now he was like yeah I've been feeling the same way um so I hope that those of you that are hurting are able to give this kind of space to each other to reach out to one another I know this last week I had a few really close friends that were giving this to me this compassion this quiet support this just knowing that they are there um knowing that you know yeah we we already know like we're gonna we're gonna keep moving forward we we're already in this space doing this work this is the life we live so it's not like that's going to change um but that we don't have to immediately like have this rallying cry let's go that if right now the feeling actually is more of this overwhelm and this sadness that gets to have space too and so the real message that I wanted to land most from this episode was that rest is also a form of resistance that choosing when we are you know individuals who have been in our daily lives working to heal to change the collective to be the voices moving the needle towards equality and mutuality and mature masculinity and femininity that resting can be a radical act against what I feel is a very real societal pressure for women to always rise above to always in the face of pain or injustice or people dismissing us to always be able to be more and as this goes you know to the message that I've been hearing here and there which I really am loving right now which is this this call to to divest our energy to really pull back and in and to be soft and gentle with those that deserve us to be soft and gentle with them right now. For me that has been a lot of like this last week I could tell with the like me pressuring myself to like okay step up be more you're a leader like come on I was losing my ability to be present in the moment to be soft with those I love I was so disconnected from my partner Joe I have to like I I want to say you know disconnected in the framework of our relationship because we are normally so incredibly like emotionally mentally physically synced up and I was just so agitated all week my nervous system was so on fire my body felt like it was you know in attack mode and that it was really dropping back this weekend and realizing like this is not a race and I really have to come back into the only thing I have control over which is me and that I don't have to move forward until I'm ready and when I do move forward it gets to be in a way that feels supportive and healthy for me. And that right now the most supportive thing for me is to pause to take a break and to trust that the time for rising will come naturally and it already has you know I even as I'm saying like to take a pause here I am recording a podcast episode to go out to all of you right like but it's that so many of us that are already doing this work we can feel that pressure to just keep like now more than ever to just keep going and instead I wanted to say like in this what was obviously a much shorter episode this week which is part of me taking care of myself to just say take the space to tend your hurting hearts to be held and to hold those you love um you know if that is not the case for you right now because I know so many of you are in the throes of considering divorce to find those women that can hold you and I would offer it's probably gonna be women um and to just offer a huge lifeline to those of you that may be like oh my God I am not in the throes of you know where I am at in my life right being a leader moving this work forward and in fact I feel completely isolated and I don't have anyone that you do have those spaces like I am so proud to know that the community that I have created is that very space. I met a woman on a 90 minute last week who lives in a rural town with like 600 people in it. And she talked about how scared she was of being isolated and ostracized and not understood if she decides to get divorced. And I was so proud to be able to say to her's your invite to the community like we want you let's let's get you in there let's get you supported let's get you with other women who can hold space who do not need to fix you who do not need to change you who can hold you wherever you are at so if that is the case for you know those of you hoping and wanting to get into the community um I I am going to be um maybe towards the end of this month I'm not going to be opening the community but I am going to be opening up um being able to start scheduling interviews to get into the community for those that I have not met on 90 minute sessions um yeah that's gonna be that's part of the protocol for coming in so um I've got a really exciting podcast episode in fact two of them um I just recorded one right before this episode that will be dropping around the time that I open that up where you'll be able to go in and start signing up, doing those interviews with me from one of the amazing women uh that I started coaching at the very beginning of my journey who was in the exact same situation, like completely isolated, no friends, no one supporting her and is now a year and a half out of her um marriage. Incredible story I'm really excited so about the it'll be the same time that I drop that episode is when I'll be opening up the community to start scheduling out those appointments. And those who pass that interview process all of those interviews will be happening with me will then go on a list and then at the beginning of each month those that are already on the list that have already been vetted that have already signed the documents we have guidelines for the community we have an NDA for the community will be able to then join the community at the beginning of each month. So just know if if you're like I have no one oh my God that's he's so sad. If you are feeling that way like you do not have anyone right I have my partner now I have someone to hold me all week long to be there to process with me. I have my best friends Quinn and Lauren and you know and I have all the women in the community as well to just feel that solidarity with so if you are feeling very alone very like you do not have know that um I see you and it is coming and access to the community you know we're we're getting to I'm getting to the point where I'm almost ready to um like I said at the beginning of the new year's when that's when it'll be January 1st when I open up the next round of letting women in but even before then I'm going to be doing interviews. So I really want to give that lifeline to those of you that may be kind of where I was at five to six years ago just at the very beginning waking up to the consequences of the patriarchal conditioning in my life and when you're in that situation you often are surrounded by people who all subscribe to that idea. So it can feel really isolating and really lonely and that's the gift of having this community that is accessible to those of you needing that support. I'm so grateful I got to do this episode I had been thinking all last week what I wanted to say I did not want to let this moment pass without really adding my voice to um to the incredible dialogue going on. I have to say I've seen so many people and voices out there that make me immensely proud that make me feel um very very like yeah these these are my people these are people who understand and that feels amazing to really find your tribe to find people who see you and understand your pain and are not uh needing you to hide it or uh you know pack it down so that they don't have to look at their own shadows. So I I want to close by just saying you know this week I hope that we will all just in very small nourishing ways take care of ourselves to you know slow down, give your nervous system rest in the grass you know perhaps in the middle of the night looking up at the stars like letting yourself feel what is coming through sitting quietly or taking moments of intentional solitude and also connecting into the communities that are here for us the communities or and even you know the maybe the one person that gets you or loves you in the way that you most want to be seen right in all your full messy I don't need to be fixed I am not broken ways um and here is to really utilizing I believe for whatever comes ahead this foundation of using rest as resistance to saying no to the patriarchal ways of go go go go going and always having to rise above and always having to overcome we're going to do this a different way and um I'm so also excited to in the future to collaborate and I've seen so much of that coming out of our communities becoming even closer knit of connections that wouldn't have happened previously coming out of this and that makes me super excited about the infrastructures that are becoming even more connected now through this pain right um there are beautiful things that can come out of pain and will and I am excited to access them after taking as much resistant rest as I need. So to that I will leave all of you with that message and I will see you on our next episode