Welcome to the Stay or Go podcast, where we're changing the dialogue around divorce so that no woman ever stays in her marriage out of fear. Get ready to dispel myths, learn life-changing tools, and build a solid foundation in yourself from which to make your decision. And now your host, me, Britta Joe. Hello, hello, my lovelies. Yay. We are about to spend some time together on an episode that I'm really excited about. I think helping my clients, even just helping myself trust the timing of my journey, has been one of the core pieces of my life themes. And so I'm really excited to dig into this with you guys today. I have been really busy. Before I kind of give you an outline of what the episode's going to look like, I just have to say I'm getting even more excited for um opening up the community. I have been diving deep into all of the facets of creating this world. And oh my God, it is a lot. But my best friend, you know, Quinn, the other day, on one of our messages back and forth, she was like, Keep going. I believe in you. You are birthing something really beautiful in the world. Keep going. And I really needed to hear that because just like birth, it is whew. Um, at times it feels like a lot just keeping track of all these pieces. Um, and I get into this pressured mode of like, go, go, go. And so I've been having to really lean back and go, it's okay. I can enjoy the journey. I can enjoy the timing of this journey that I'm on in creating this community. So just know that is a lot of what I've been doing behind the scenes, and I'm getting very excited to um share it with you. I'm actually gonna be opening up kind of a beta group with a lot of you that I've met on my 90-minute sessions and have um reached out and spoken with. So I'm excited. Um, those are just sending so much good love to those women that are gonna be coming in ahead of the rest of y'all to kind of work out the kinks with me and to play and to get to explore and figure out really what's a good fit. And then once we have that in, you know, rolling really beautifully, we're gonna open it up and start bringing in the bigger group, which will be just so exciting to get to spend time all of us together in such a magical and special place that'll be just ours. Okay, so now to the topic for today. Like I said, we're gonna be talking about trusting the timing of your journey, specifically in this potent period of when you're considering divorce. But I want you to realize this principle of being able to trust the timing of your life will serve you regardless, you know, whether you get divorced, whether you stay married. This is a concept that's going to help you in every aspect of your life and for the rest of your life. I really do think it's one of the most important pieces that has helped me to learn how to calm down, tap into that centered inner knowing, and ride the waves of my life with more confidence and just ooh, centeredness. So I am gonna be focusing on four different areas. The first area we're gonna talk about is that just overarching topic of trusting the timing of your life. Then we're gonna dive in, though, into specifically releasing guilt around staying too long or leaving too soon. Next, we are gonna be talking about the myth of missing out on happiness. I see a lot of women that, you know, really end up feeling regret and getting spun around in regret coming off of that previous topic, right? Oh, did I leave too soon? You know, am I leaving too soon? Did I not leave soon enough? That third piece is from there, you can end up feeling like you missed out on something in your life or on happiness that you could have had. We're really gonna dispel that notion. And then we're gonna finish off with talking about why letting your journey take the amount of time it's meant to matters because it allows you to learn crucial lessons along the path that you have walked. So let's get right to it. Okay, to kind of start us off, I love starting off with a story to just kind of pop you into a personal experience. I, in thinking about this topic, was like, okay, where were there moments in my life, um, specifically when I also was considering divorce, that I maybe felt like things were going off track or I wasn't on time, only to realize later that everything ended up happening in really perfect timing. And um I definitely thought of a few key pieces that I wanted to share with you guys. So one of the things I don't know if I've shared this on the podcast before, if I have, then you're getting a second round of it. But I actually had a pretty strong confirmation and knowing that I was gonna get divorced and it was gonna be okay a year before I actually filed. So, y'all, I like knee and still ended up staying for an entire year after that. And um looking back at that, I know at the time, I think at times I felt like, oh, I should have just left then. But now with that hindsight piece, I can see how important that year was for me. That was a year where I really got to flesh out a lot of different ideas. I got to learn more about myself. I was in a whole nother extra year of therapy. That was another year where I got to do growth and healing on myself with the support of still being married, still having someone who was making money, still getting to be a stay-at-home mom, you know, not having to launch right away into a career or into figuring things out or going through that process. So I really think looking back that the universe knew she just needs a little bit more time to get her feet underneath her to build up that knowing and that love for herself that she's gonna need once we launch into actually filing and going into the divorce. Also, there were some really key moments when I was going through my divorce. It ended up taking, you know, nine months where I, you know, your brain, our brains just do this where they're constantly looking to the future or they're going to the past, trying to figure out like what's gonna happen and am I on track? And there were key moments in the divorce proceedings. Um, I can think specifically of a moment where when the day that we mediated, we were in mediation for like 11 hours that day. I mean, seriously, from morning till night, we were there with our mediator going from room to room. I was in one room with my attorney. My husband at the time was in the other room with his attorney. And at the very end of these 11 hours of mediating, my attorney ended up calling it and walking out and being like, We'll see you in court. And I remember in that moment being like, no. And I remember sitting in my car afterwards, calling my sister, just bawling, being like, I can't believe this just happened. And of course, there's there's more details to all of this, but I don't want to spend time digging into all of that. But the point was, I thought I knew the timing. I thought I knew how things were gonna happen and that I was gonna leave that day, you know, with a worked-out divorce decree and we could move forward. And life sent me a sharp left turn of my attorney when things kind of got gridlocked towards the end, just being like, nope, we're done and leaving. It turned out that that was such a huge gift because um, in some ways, I think she kind of she just read the situation and her taking such a decisive, you know, she didn't even ask me, like, can we like she just made a decision and we left. But that ultimately led to the next day us getting a letter from my husband's attorney saying, you know, hey, actually we don't want to go to court and here we are accepting the terms. Let's move forward. And I just remember being like, oh my gosh, you know, thank goodness, right? The night before I am in just such desperate, like, oh, like despair of this did not work out how I thought it was gonna be. Now we're going to court. And in hindsight, thank goodness, because the deal that was accepted, the um what we were able to work out, what was sent back over the next day, right? Speaking about timing, the next day, I would take that over what we were doing the night before over and over and over again. So great example to me of like, whoosh, there's a greater plan here. It's unfolding perfectly. Trust the process. Okay. And especially when it is coming to, you know, when we're talking about something as big of a decision as considering divorce, I really want you guys to play during this episode and afterwards with this new thought I want to introduce for you all, which is this idea that you cannot miss out on what is meant for you or mess things up. Okay, just kind of let that start simmering. We're gonna, you know, I may sprinkle that in as we go throughout, but that is one of the biggest core beliefs that powers my life, um, that I stray from at times and experience a lot of stress and discomfort when I do, but that when I come back to, it really makes life move smoother. And I find synchronicities and openings and I meet the perfect people at the perfect times when I am choosing to believe I can't miss out on what's meant for me and I can't mess things up. So play with that while we're doing this episode and notice how those thoughts might help you release some of the pressure you have been putting on yourself to make the right decision, putting that in air quotes, and instead just leaning into trusting the process. All right. So, our first section, this is where we're gonna explore a little bit more what I mean when I'm talking about trusting the timing of your life. So I would say, you know, previous to my whole journey with divorce, um, every everything I've gone through since then and who I've become since then over the last, you know, this is really when I started therapy. So six to seven years, I've been divorced now, five. I was very much a believer in the Mormon way of thinking and understanding life, which is like there's a plan, there's rules, if you follow them, everything will work out. You need to do it a specific way. Um and you know, there's timing to that. And if you aren't on track with that timing, then you're doing something wrong. That is so not true. Let me just tell you all, it's just not. And if life, I I'm because you all are in the process of considering divorce, I'm pretty sure that life has thrown you some curveballs that you weren't expecting. So you're probably a little bit more open to like, uh shit. I don't think I'm really as in control or in charge of this as I thought. Um, and so I just want to reassure you that is that's true. That's what I've seen, what I'm seeing more and more from you know my clients, from myself, just as I see life around me. It's that life each of us seem to have this journey that we're on, and it is going to unfold in its own time. And that is not a bad thing. You actually being in control, which you've been taught is what you need to be, actually may not be the best thing for you. And opening to this idea that life might actually have something even better than you can imagine for you if you will trust its timing. So to illustrate this, um, this week I got coached by, I'm in this EK Existential Kink um coaching program right now. It is really leveling up my abilities as a coach. And in it, we're trading coaching with other people in the program. And I was coached by this amazing other coach, just so beautiful in her process. And she, we were talking about this exact concept, and she had made this beautiful comic that I'm gonna link in the show notes, um illustrating this exact idea. And I love it, you'll have to go look at it. But in it, there's a like oak tree and a sunflower seed that get planted at the same time. And as they're growing, they look the same in the beginning. And so they're like, Oh my god, look at you, look at us, this is amazing. And then as time goes on, right, the sunflower blooms and it ends up being like, Oh my god, that's what I am. I'm a sunflower, go me. And the oak tree's like, Oh, I'm still not sure what I am. You grew so much faster than me. What's wrong with me? And over time, the oak tree watches as like sunflowers come and go, and it starts to like, what's wrong with me? Like, is there why why are they doing it, quote, so much better? And why do I not look the same? And why are things different for me? And then I love at the end of the comic, you know, a hundred years later, there's this gorgeous, full oak tree. And the point with that comic is realizing each of our paths is different because each of us is a different. You often hear me talk about you as creatures, right? But we can also use this analogy like each of us is a different plant, and we all have different um timelines of growth, and we have different things we are turning into. Um, and what I really want you to sink into is this idea that wherever you are right now, you are exactly where you're supposed to be. The timing is unfolding exquisitely. That doesn't mean, and I want to caveat this, this doesn't mean that you're gonna always feel comfortable with where you're at or that you're always gonna be happy with where you're at. But the growth that you are needing, the lessons that are going to make you into the person you want to be are here right now. One of the things I also wanted to explore with you all was that, you know, so let's say we're you're an oak tree, right? We're using this analogy of like looking around, seeing all these sunflowers that like need a totally different, you know, their timing's different than us. We're a little bit confused, we're just like, oh, what's happening? Why is why am I different? What creates that sensation of like I'm falling behind, or maybe there's something wrong with me? As I was thinking about this, I was like, I really think it comes from, you know, societal pressure, societal standards of what we're supposed to be, what levels we're supposed to, you know, reach at certain times. I know many of us like, you know, there's a certain age that you probably thought was like, okay, I should be married by this age, and then I should have kids by this age, and we should own a home by this time. So we have societal pressure, and then we also have like, I'm gonna be generous and say well-meaning advice from our friends and family that ultimately, though, can make it feel like there is a right time to act, to make certain choices in our life. And you will definitely feel this if you are in the process of considering divorce. Because if you've shared what's going on or how you're feeling with other people, uh sometimes them seeing you in a process of growth or discomfort, elicits a reaction of them wanting you to make a decision and be resolved so that they can feel better. But in reality, your journey and the timing of your decisions are so unique to you that no one outside of you, whether they are your best friend or your mom or your auntie, nobody else knows when and what that decision is going to be for you. And so it's a lot of being able to trust yourself to know when it's time to move forward or to pause. And that, you know, finding clarity around this decision really isn't something that you can just force. I have seen this many, many times. Um, and I'll talk about it a little bit later when I talk about, you know, the differences I've seen in clients, but everybody's journey is so uniquely theirs. And actually, when we try to force the decision, what I've seen is that pressure is what actually confuses us even more. Because pressure, at least for me, really dysregulates and gets me out of my body. It is so difficult to make an aligned decision for what you want to do on getting divorced or not when you are disconnected from your body, all up in your head, listening to what everybody's saying, Googling, should I get divorced? I see you out there. So I want to encourage you: if you have not gotten your answer yet, the solution is not to crank up the pressure and push harder on yourself. In fact, one of the most important things I have learned, and another like belief that I choose to live by now, is we slow down to speed up. And what I mean by that is when we are in a state of regulation, okay, when our parasympathetic nervous system is online, we're breathing deep, we are in our body, that is when we can hear our inner knowings. That is when we can see. It's like the blinders of the fear and the pressure come off. And we start noticing key people or key decisions or new ideas about the path forward. And that's where things speed up. Because the things that are meant for you, you're able to see them more quickly because you are slowing down and using your body as the guide rather than your mind just running you ragged with the we gotta decide, we gotta decide, we gotta figure this out. So I really want you guys to take a second. And we're just gonna breathe together into this truth. There is no rush. I want you to notice what these words do in your body. Notice how your body reacts to those words. There is no rush. Even when it feels urgent, the decision will come when it's meant to. And I promise you this. I want you to think of this a little bit like birth. Okay, no matter how much you want a baby to come, that baby is not coming until it's ready. And I I will, I'm like, as I'm saying that, I'm like, okay, okay. So we do have like, you know, getting induced and stuff in today's, you know, medical world. But when it comes to this decision, that is the case. It is, it knows when it is ripe and ready for you to know. And y'all can end up creating a lot of suffering when you want the baby now. It needs to come now. Why hasn't it come yet? What's wrong with me that it hasn't come yet? What's wrong with my life? Did I make a mistake? Am I, you know, you just spiral out into all of this extra suffering versus what I really think is calling to you, which is the like, oof, what is here in the patience? What is here in the stillness? And we're gonna talk a little bit later about like the lessons, the key lessons. You are learning in these moments where the journey where you might think you're off track and you are actually right on time. Okay, so the second section that I really wanted to explore with you guys is helping you to release the guilt that I see so many of you adding into the mix around whether you have stayed too long or whether you are leaving too soon. Do you just see what a beautiful, like little mind fuck this is for your brain to just run you like a gerbil on a wheel, right? Round and round and round and round in this frantic, am I staying too long? Am I leaving too soon? Drama that we create inside of ourselves. So guilt is one of the heaviest emotions I've seen that really makes it, you know, the crazy thing about guilt is it you think that if you guilt yourself around staying, you know, let's just pick staying too long. If you're like, okay, I've stayed too long, I need to go. I'm gonna just guilt, guilt, guilt myself. You think the guilt's gonna help motivate you to actually leave. It doesn't. It it doesn't. Guilt over and over keeps you in the same space. And I think of it kind of as like a drain. It when we're in guilt, it really you'll notice in your body, it sucks a lot of that energy for forward movement. It becomes kind of a stagnant spin-in-one place kind of energy. And so what we want to notice, and this is like so simple, it always blows my mind. I'm like, oh my God, it because we make up these huge stories around it. But what I want you to notice is that literally there is no such thing as too late or too soon in a like factual sense because whether something is too late or too soon is always just a judgment created by your mind. And I find we move into judgment when our perspective is super narrowed. Like I always think, you know, those images, have you ever seen those in those books where like they're zoomed in on something and they're asking you what it is? And then when they zoom all the way out, you realize, oh, you know, what I thought was leather is actually an elephant. Or when we are so close to the situation, it can be easy to think we've made mistakes, we're not on track. Like we've said, either we're too late or we're too soon. But if we zoom out, which is what hindsight is, right? That's why hindsight's always 2020. There is only your perfect timing. So I want to normalize for you that feelings of guilt and fear that you're too late or too soon. Yes, those are like very normal and they come up a lot when we are considering divorce. So know that they are valid, but they are not necessarily true. And they are absolutely coming from your mind, your mind placing a judgment on the situation, a mind that does not have all of the pieces, all of the facts, all of the stories, right? It doesn't have that aerial view of what's happening. Um, and I know this is, I can see this so clearly, you know, I feel very privileged that because of what I do in my work, I get to have this perspective of seeing into so many of y'all's lives, right? And working with so many of you one-on-one, that I get to see these patterns repeating over and over. And I have seen this, how I will have clients who work with me. I've had clients who work with me and like a month and a half into coaching with me for the three months, they are filing for divorce. Like they just where they just happen to hit me and find me at that moment in their journey where they were ready and the things that we were working on, it was just the exact right timing for them to take those steps. And then I have had clients who I have, I have a client right now that I've worked with for two and a half years around her process. And I would also offer that, you know, in her instance, there is a lot of extra stuff in there. We have got a lot of CBTSD and a lot of nervous system regulation that we're doing. And um all of that compounds into a different journey, right? Like she was raised by different parents, she had a different childhood. All of that has led to her very specific journey with coaching and also deciding when she wants to get divorced and how she wants to do that. And a lot of our, I've watched her over that period of those two and a half years struggle a lot with this fear that she has taken too long or that she's missed out on stuff. And throughout it all, I have always felt and still maintain to this day that she is right on track because I have watched her grow immensely through that process, through every bit, through all of that timing, right? And what this is the other, like, let me just kind of like play with your brains a little bit of like how silly it is that we even think we know what the right timing is. Like, this is the craziness of us as humans in the world we live in that we think we know what's going to happen. Like, even your calendar and what you have scheduled for tomorrow is an absolute like pipe dream. You have no idea how tomorrow is going to go. Yet, this is what we do as humans. We project out into the future to create a sense of safety, to feel like I have some kind of control. That control is always, always an illusion. And we we play with the illusion by, okay, you know, I set this up on my schedule. And then when the day goes the way we thought it was, we then believe somehow we were in control of that. It's not the case because at any second, your life can take a complete and utter left-hand turn. And what you thought was going to happen for the day doesn't happen. And I've actually learned in like in taking on this trusting the timing of my life, I've learned how to find like what would the word be? It's like, mmm, like curious, magical kind of excitement whenever this does happen for me. I'll give you a quick example because I think this will help you guys in a little bit more of trusting your timing and trusting like when things don't go the way you thought they were gonna go. Last weekend, I was supposed to meet, I met somebody new. We were gonna go out for coffee, and I show up to get coffee. She doesn't show. About 10 minutes in, I end up texting her, and it turns out she just completely spaced it. And she's like, I've never done this before. This is so weird. This is not like me. And of course, as she's writing all of this, I'm just getting more and more excited because I'm like, ooh, what is the universe up to? Something magical is unfolding. And I'm like, don't even worry about it, not a problem. Now, because she canceled on me, I was up at one of my favorite restaurants and I was gonna eat with her there. And so I made a spontaneous decision to be like, you know what? I'm gonna make reservations tonight for me and my boyfriend to come here instead. I would never have done that if we had gone and had brunch there. I would not have come back up into the city and and met with him. Fast forward to that evening where Joe and I are, you know, after having this phenomenal dinner at our favorite place, are sitting out on their back patio, the most gorgeous summer weather. And there is a live band playing rockabilly, which I had no idea was, you know, so um, let me just say, I did not know that genre was a thing for me. It is a thing for me. And I'm sitting there enjoying this live band with him, and I turned to him and I'm like, holy shit, this is what that was about. And of course, because we talk about this stuff, he's like, you're exactly right. Because I told him this morning, I was like, it's weird. She canceled, she never does this. There's magic afoot. And that's what it was. What unfolded was this incredibly amazing evening with Joe that would not have happened otherwise. So I just want you all to like, we think we know what's gonna happen. We think we know what should be happening. You just don't know. I promise you don't know. And just because somebody else's path led to, you know, coaching with me for a month and a half and deciding to get divorced, and somebody else's is taking two and a half years, both paths are valid because both paths are creating the exact growth and experiences that those women are meant to have. Let that sink in. Your journey is so perfectly tailored for you that I can say with absolute certainty that in the cases of both of these women, that path, that timing is exactly what they need. So I do want to, before I go on to the next section, I want to pause for a second and just do another little like check-in with your body, maybe even breathing deep. Cause so much of what I want this episode to be is just like, ah, like releasing how much you have been torturing yourself about making this decision. And so I want to offer and introduce another thought for you. Okay. And for this one, I just want you to maybe place your hand over your heart, take a couple of deep breaths. And while you're enjoying that second breath, maybe closing your eyes and noticing your body as I say the following.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah, it's okay. You didn't make any mistakes. You were not supposed to have done things differently. Just notice what that's like in your body. And it's okay if it doesn't always produce relief for some of you, it may produce other feelings.
SPEAKER_01All of it gets to be here. Now, this leads us into the third section, which is the myth of missing out on happiness. Just like what I just said, right? This idea that you should have done things differently, that your life shouldn't be what it is, and that if you'd done things differently, you would have more happiness, more connection, more of all the things you want in your life that you're now missing out on. And also, you know, so that's like where we're using it in the past, like because I haven't gotten divorced yet, I'm missing out on something, or because our marriage went the way it was, I'm missing out. But you can also, this is the, you know, beautiful trickiness of what our brains do. Not only can we use that to like hurt ourselves from the past, but you can also project that out into the future, right? Which is the fear that in delaying this decision, I'm somehow missing out on peace or connection with someone else or a better life. And I want to say this again and reiterate it. You cannot miss out on what is meant for you. Okay. So I want to reframe the anxiety that you all have around this idea, right? Of like, I'm missing out. Um, either I missed out on something in the past or I'm gonna miss out on something in the future. By helping you guys understand that happiness, right? I'm missing out on happiness, I'm missing out on connection. Happiness is not something you're going to achieve once you make the air quotes right decision. It is something that is actually always available to you, even in the waiting period. And I actually kind of want to reframe as I'm like thinking about this deeper. I don't even know if I want the word to be happiness, but like it's this idea that you think there is something you are going to get in the future that you do not have right now. And I want to caveat this by saying this does not mean we we don't make decisions and we don't move forward and we don't, right? All of that is gonna play. But there is very important pieces of your journey, of yourself, of who you're becoming that I have watched in my clients that come in the process, that come in the ebbs and flows, in the waiting, in the moving. This is where you develop the skills for whatever your after is gonna be once you make the decision, whether it is stay or go. Okay. So we're getting this bigger picture of life, not just being about how I can get to the goals, how can I get to the things that'll make me happy, and it being more life creating you into the human you most want to be. And that piece is always happening, no matter whether you've made the decision yet or not, no matter whether you're happy or not, no matter whether you're married or not. Learning this key, that life is always giving you the next piece of your journey, and you cannot miss the things that are meant for you. I think how that helps is it allows you to kind of like uh take some of the pressure off yourself and get more curious about what life is presenting to you. And that does not mean when I say take the pressure off, for some of y'all, that that's not gonna mean stay. Okay. Taking the pressure off doesn't mean you don't still go. For me, when I took the pressure off of myself, what I actually dropped into was a more certain feeling of like, I am genuinely not happy. When I stopped running around, distracting myself with like, am I gonna stay? Am I gonna go? And I just kind of like, oof, what is here for me right now? I realized this is not a fit. And as I've talked about on the podcast before, what was really waiting there was feelings. So much of this, did I make a mistake? Did I not? This jumping to the past, going to the future is about avoiding the present. And in the present is the real work. It's the work of meeting yourself, of seeing yourself where you are at right now in all of its messy, unperfected, beautiful human-ishness. Okay. So I want you to know that making a decision whether it is to stay or to leave, it is not about fixing something broken or racing toward a new life. It is instead about creating space within yourself for alignment with your inner truth. Let that land because that is probably blowing quite a few of your minds. Like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, what? We're not trying to fix something that's broken and I'm not like racing towards a new life. No, no, no, no, no. This journey you're on, this is like what I'm the most passionate about. This is why I coach women specifically in this incredible space of considering, because you are in this gorgeous container that if you will start listening and dropping in and really getting in touch with yourself, I have seen it create so incredibly insanely fast you aligning with your truth in ways that you may never have done otherwise. And that's why, you know, when I'm when I coach my clients, I'm never in this space of like, we gotta make a decision, we gotta make a decision, because I know the gift is not in the final decision. Yes, is the the final decision like a great moment for sure. I I loved, I have pictures on my phone of the day I walked into my attorney's office and you know, signed the final divorce papers. And I love that decision. But I also see now in the the greater context of my life as a whole that that decision was just like one step on a huge fucking massive journey. Like everything leading up to that was all these steps as well. And that was just the next step. And then, you know, I would have been really disappointed if I thought that was the goal. And then I got divorced and realized, well, fuck, I still have to like show up and be a mom and do all these other things. And like, you don't get to just, it's not like Magic Fairyland just shows up. But because I had been learning prior to that how to like be with my journey, how to trust my timing. I saw it as just a step on the path into this bigger idea of living a life that was aligned with my inner truths. And that is the vision I want most for you all. And that's the beauty of like for some of you, that inner truth will be staying married. It will be speaking more openly and confidently and people pleasing less in your marriage. And through that, activating things in your partner that, you know, he gets to in the marriages that I see that, you know, work, where he dives deeper and he goes, You're right. I do have stuff, and I also want to see my stuff and I want to work on that together, and you both embark on that journey. But that is that is so much less about something being broken or escaping or like it's gonna be better once I leave, and so much more about coming to deeply know yourself and your truth. So, to do that, I want more so than you know, whether you're gonna make this decision or not, I want you guys focusing on nurturing yourself and cultivating a deep inner peace in the present moment rather than obsessing over whether you've missed the chance for something better. And I really want to like parse that out and make sure you're hearing me correctly. I am not saying I want you cultivating peace around, you know, okay, I need to stay in my marriage or okay, I need to go. I'm saying just cultivating peace in the present moment of this is my life, and it is unfolding in the perfect timing. And that may very well mean I'm uncomfortable right now. I'm I'm not happy in my marriage, or maybe it's I'm gonna have to be brave and speak up and say something here or acknowledge something there, or um, but noticing that this spiraling that we do, where we torture ourselves and we guilt ourselves that we've either missed the chance for something better, we should have laughed sooner, or maybe you know, we're we're leaving too soon and we're gonna ruin everything. That is all just mind games that are here to distract you from the deeper lesson of knowing and aligning with your inner truth. So that leads us to my final section of the episode, which is this just like ah gorgeous piece of really awesome. Honoring the path that you walk in your life, the journey that is yours, and the gems and um experiences and learning that you will have from this perfectly crafted and tailored experience that is like your one-of-a-kind journey through life. So this is where we start to realize like, oh my gosh, every step of the journey, even the confusing or painful moments, holds value. And that everything we experience is, if we look at it through a framework of expanding us, teaching us more about ourselves, helping us grow. Um even the most shocking, rough moments of our lives, when we look back at them, are often the moments when we have the most growth, when we really question and we, you know, discover more about who we truly are. So all throughout this journey, every part, and this is like also the like beautiful gift you can give yourself when you realize every part of your marriage and and this process of considering divorce, everything that led up to your marriage is filled with lessons, growth, and self-discovery. And as someone who has walked that, right, as someone, and you know from the podcast, I have been through some serious shit in my life, in my childhood, in the Mormon conditioning, in um the explosion of my family later on, and having to testify against my dad in court, right? It doesn't mean that that's all been, you know, felt hunky dory and been great. It's been really hard at various times for sure. But that hard is what has made me into the badass that I am today. And that is the piece of like seeing, you know, I I love that I can look back now. And this was a process, right? So I do want to acknowledge how I got to this perspective of really owning my entire journey and being like, I want all of it. I remember the moment. It was when I was going through a particularly um really rough period emotionally, and I remember feeling just needing to do a lot of work around feeling victimized, feeling like my life had been taken from me, that all the things I wanted to be, I never got to be, feeling I had this image in my head, and I may have shared this on the podcast earlier, but of this horse with like a broken leg, you know, being at the starting gates and just never even having a shot to run the race fully because I was so handicapped from the narcissistic abuse from my mother, from the sexual abuse from my father, and how that formed and really changed my brain and, you know, all the effects of the CPTSD. So I was in this deep process of needing to grieve and really feel the victimhood. And I remember at one point thinking, like I had this voice come into my head because I was specifically thinking about how I wish I hadn't married my ex-husband. And the voice was like, okay, well, if that's if that's what you want, then you don't get to go to Oakland. And I was like shocked because Oakland was such a huge part of my growth. Because I married my ex-husband, we ended up moving to Oakland, California. And we lived there for seven years. And through that environment, I became a much more nuanced, compassionate, able to see the gray kind of person through the people I met there. And to have the universe kind of snap back at me a little bit and be like, okay, you don't want to be married. You wish you wouldn't have married him. Okay, then you don't get Oakland. And to realize, well, shit, Oakland has made me a huge part of who I am. Okay, I want that. Then with that comes the marriage. And of course, you know, then that a lot of you can relate to this through the piece of like, if you hadn't married, you know, if you have children, if you hadn't married your spouse, then you wouldn't have children. And so when we do this, we realize, like, oh my gosh, like, like I want you to pause for a second. And even if your marriage is something that like you're leaning towards, okay, I'm probably gonna go. I don't see this working out. You can still reflect on how you being married to this person, like, take a second to to think back on like what you learned about yourself, about your needs and your desires throughout your marriage. Right? This goes to something so much bigger, and I'll use myself as the example, which is that I didn't know how much I needed a secure partner and emotional connection in the ways that I do until 12 years of a marriage without it. Do you guys hear me? That's a knowledge I had to learn through the hard reality of just living it. That was something that I didn't know was valuable to me because I was raised in a family that didn't value it, where it wasn't a part of it. Like true unconditional love, true seeing and valuing someone for who they are. And so it's the whole like, you can't know until you know. Like you just kind of have to live a life, get fucked up a little bit, figure yourself out, learn what it is that you actually want, deprogram all the shit that you were given by your trauma and your parents and the stuff that happened in your childhood to filter all that out enough to be like, oh, wait a second. This is what I need. This is actually what I desire. And when you do that work, which is why I'm saying the timing is perfect, y'all, because the timing allows you to do this beautiful deeper work. That is what allowed me when I was getting divorced to come from more of a space of like instead of hating my ex-husband, I saw it for what it was, which was like two humans raised in a cult, told particular ideas about what marriage was, shown particular things by their parents in their marriages that just was not a fit for me, at least. And I felt compassion for both of us, and I knew for me, I needed to leave because through that journey I had learned what I desired most, which was true, like soul depth knowing by a partner. And I had already spent 12 years with my current partner trying. And granted, I would offer that, you know, probably was only in the last couple of years that I really even was striving for that because I didn't even, you know, really have that in myself. And I guess that's uh something for another podcast, you know. My brain is is going to the space of like, I even knew, I think part of me knew that I could stay in my marriage and maybe, you know, with enough time we could figure that out together. But I also knew I just didn't want to. I just didn't want to. For me, it just felt like too much water under the bridge. I want a fresh start. And I'm so glad that I just honored that, right? That even in knowing I could probably hang in there and make this work, it was like, no, I want a different journey. And now, of course, hindsight, right? Thank goodness, because I did need a lot of time on my own. I'd gone straight from being, you know, 19 in college, so straight out of my parents' house to being married. And I needed the time and space to be single, to date, to figure out what I liked and who I was without a person in my life that, you know, where I had a kind of power over dynamic, a kind of parental role. It was my parents growing up, and then it did become my spouse in our marriage, not even because of him, but just because that's how my brain had been trained. So I learned crucial things about myself, about my needs, about my desires through my marriage. And I would offer, you know, about what I wanted instead through the contrast. So I really want to encourage you guys to take this bigger lens when it comes to the process of considering divorce for you. And maybe even give yourself some time to journal and play with acknowledging the strength and the wisdom that you have gained through your journey, even if your decision is still unclear. This is the giving yourself love now instead of withholding it only for when you, you know, finally make your decision. No, you deserve to be loved and celebrated for all that you have done, for all the wisdom you have gained that has led you to this exact moment. None of that has been wasted time. It has all been preparation for the clarity you are seeking. And I will guarantee you that that clarity will come. We never know the timing when when the answer actually came for me. It was like it was a total like needle that broke the haystack or needle that broke the camel's back. There we go. Uh, moment for me that just kind of came out of the blue. Like I thought we were gonna stay married. I was kind of like back on that track. And it was just a small comment that he made, and I felt it in my body, and I knew like I'm done. So you never know when that clarity is coming. I promise it is though. Use this time to love yourself, to love your journey. I want you to know that you are exactly on time. I promise you. Whether you are confused, whether you are ready to make the decision, whether you are still exploring, you are exactly on time. There is no right or wrong way to go about this. And I know with certainty that the path that you are on is the perfect path for you. And it is in trusting that your path is the perfect one for you. Perfect, tailor-made, one of a kind. That is where you find the peace, the ability to breathe deep, to release the pressure, to drop into yourself. I know that your answers are already inside of you, and you are fully capable of navigating this process with grace and self-love. That is what this episode is advocating for. For all of us, just taking a collective deep breath and sigh of relief that you can trust the timing of your journey. Y'all, I really enjoyed this episode. I am so, so grateful. It means so much to have you guys listening. Um, a few of you have reached out to me this week, being like, hey, when's the community opening? You know, I'm listening to the latest episode. Just thank you. It, your love and you sending back that gratitude means so much. As you all know, like I said, the community is coming along. I am hoping within the next couple months to be opening it. I am very excited to have this space where you guys will be able to connect with others that are on these similar journeys and be able to find much deeper support in navigating your own timelines and just a space where everybody, where we all have this vision of everybody's timing is perfect and their own. I also wanted to mention I had a few openings in my one-on-one coaching. Coaching, I think I might start using that. I had a few openings in my one-on-one coaching over the last few weeks. And I am feeling, yeah, called. Um, originally I thought maybe I would just leave them so that I could focus more on the community, but I would really love to take on clients, you know, any of you that have been thinking about coaching with me one-on-one and just are feeling really like yummily called to it. Like, I'm ready. I want to go deeper. Let's do this. Also knowing, and the reason why I'm like excited to kind of put this out there and send out that call to those of you that might feel aligned with it. Once the community opens, I think I'm probably gonna take my one-on-one coaching. I'm gonna lessen my client load, be focusing more on the community, and maybe only taking right now. I like to take about 10 one-on-one clients, and I'll probably drop that down to about five and um potentially also raise my prices just to kind of balance everything out. So I I want to be transparent about that so that those of you that might have been considering know what's coming. If it's something you felt really called to, but you've been waiting to, you know, make that jump, go ahead and sign up on my website. You'll see there's like an intro call where we like a vibe check call. I love that, where we get to kind of see if we're a fit. Um, and I would love to take on a few more one-on-one clients before I kind of shift into a different energy with the community opening up. So if you feel called to that, reach out for the rest of you all. Oof, know that I love you. Know that you are seen, and you can trust your timing. Till next week.