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, my wonderful, lovely humans. Listening to this podcast right now. I'm sitting in my office. There have been so many emotions. Ooh, today. This giant Texas-sized storm just rolled through, and the sky is filled with the most beautiful moody clouds. And it just fills me with I think I think it might be just like a delight uh to be experiencing this moment of sitting down to record this episode, which why this episode feels so just mmm is because it's gonna be really um vulnerable, open, spoken directly from my heart, straight into yours. This is an episode that I don't have a draft for. I have not been thinking about this episode. I've not been pre-formulating coming up with what I'm gonna say. Really is just coming straight out of my soul, it feels like. And that's a new thing. So we'll see how it goes. Um, I have a feeling it's gonna go beautifully. And why I just love the storm coming through and the way it's been today is because a lot of what I want to just kind of be real with you all about is the stormy, messy beautifulness of being human and what we're all trying to get through here in the best ways that we can. So with that um preface, I want to just start diving into wherever my heart's gonna lead me on this episode. And I think the first piece, as I was sitting here thinking, okay, what what's kind of gonna be the title? Um, I'm entitling this episode, you know, a love letter to my pre-divorce self, because that's what I've been feeling so much emotion about lately. Um it'll be five years in September of this year. And over the last two to four weeks, there has been a lot of just seeing myself more fully, seeing the creature that I am, what she needs, who she is, what matters to her, what's important. Um, and in a lot of ways, how difficult it is for her to be a human, to um experience the wide range of all there is in this human existence. So I want to dive into some of that. I definitely want to talk very openly about what that's been like over these last four weeks because I think if there's anything that is really at the heart of my coaching, it is this desire I have to be in the messy beautifulness of life with you, and to be a voice that exposes that and celebrates it and also grieves with you through it, and is able to just say, yeah, we're all in this together. And I know I think a lot of this too is over the last week, I've been dropping into learning more about this community that I'm wanting to open and build with all of you, um, this online community. And they're asking me to, you know, in the strategies and in the thinking about what I want, it there's a lot of like dropping back down into who you all are, what you're going through, what are you wanting? And it's really taken me back to what it was like when I was in that space. And so that contrast of thinking back to what it was like when I was first considering divorce and all of the fear and the overwhelm and the just absolute crushing um pain of not knowing if it would ever be better, of feeling called to something bigger, and at the same time being absolutely terrified. And then now seeing who I am now and acknowledging in some ways that it's still um, it's still not certain. There are areas of my life that are still messy, and I want to be real about that with you all while also saying, and the me that I have discovered through being brave enough to follow that soul call almost five years ago. I would never trade this me for for anything. I would go through all of it again. I would, I would experience all of the ups and downs and be where I'm at right now in this beautifully imperfect, still very much in process place. So we're gonna dive in in my like messy rabbit hole brain kind of way, and we'll hope that things are said and things are shared that will be exactly what so many of you are wanting to hear. So to start, um I want to acknowledge just straight out the gate because I do think at times it can be easy to look at me and where I'm at and the way I speak and the things I talk about and believe that I have everything figured out. And um the last three, four weeks have really just reminded me how much I am still a human in process, and that I will be a human in process for the rest of my life. So as I'm saying this, I'm like laughing because I'm like, yeah, duh. But how many of us, I don't know, had this idea that we were gonna like grow up and be adults? And like once we were adults, we were gonna have it all figured out. It was gonna make sense, it was gonna be logical, we were gonna feel differently about ourselves, differently about the world. And I am very aware now how that's not what happens. It's not like you magically turn 30 or 40 or get married or have kids and suddenly have life figured out and feel competent. It doesn't work that way. And in fact, I've actually, as I've become a coach and actually gotten to meet and be real with people instead of the fake masks that we put on for everybody else. I've realized how much most of us are very scared little humans, childlike in many ways, that are just operating in adult bodies and walking around pretending like we're adults and hoping that nobody likes figures it out. When in reality, there are so many unmet needs and desires and unspoken fears and feelings that we are just trying to hold inside of us. So contrary to that acknowledgement breaking me, I have found that the more that I have been able to be real and honest with what's actually going on inside me, with the complexities of all of this, with um in many ways letting go of like Mormonism. For Mormonism, there was a lot of framework, a lot of external rules, and here, do this, do this, do this, and that means you've arrived and you can feel good about yourself. And letting go of that, I've had to go inward to like who am I really? What do I, what do I want? What does a good life actually look like? What does me being a good me? I don't even like good because it's but you know, being a whole human look like. And the beauty of that journey is that it's led me to speak and talk about things that I keep hearing from those of you that I'm meeting in, you know, intensives and that really resonates with you because I I think I've learned to be less afraid about just acknowledging what is. And um, and that contrary to what I think we do in the world of oh, it's messy, we need to clean it up, we need to make it pretty, we need to make it look good, being like bring on the messy. I want to see all of you. And really deep down, I think that's what most humans are the deepest um desire that most of us have is to really truly be seen in all of our messiness and still be loved. So I would say pre-divorce, me definitely did not understand this depth of life that I am expressing to all of you. In many ways, she just wanted to feel safe. She just wanted to be happy, she just wanted to be loved. And um, if I could look back and talk to her, I would say, yes, absolutely, you're going to experience so much more of that, without a doubt. And also, I don't want you to be afraid that it's not gonna be all that. It's not gonna always be feeling happy, it's not gonna always be feeling safe. And um, I think I would want to reassure her, as I'm hoping in hearing this, it will reassure those of you that are listening. That is okay, and even better than okay, it's actually what she most deeply wants. And I know she would probably look at me and be like, I don't know, like secure, safe, happy all the time. Life sounds pretty good. But as I've been, you know, in my own personal work, diving deeper into what a truly good life for me looks like, I have learned, as I've said to you guys before, the dark comes with the light, the happy comes with the sad, and wanting to really experience all of those things because that is what when you go through and you can be there for yourself and have your back through all of those things, that is what creates what you guys hear in my voice on these episodes, which is this deep, like undying love for myself and the journey I'm on. And as I was thinking about what I wanted to convey to you guys in this episode, I was thinking about these moments that have happened. They happen more and more and more each year now. But there are these moments where I am able to just drop into an experience in my life with such exquisite presence that I experience like love and connection and just like damn, I'm so proud of myself in ways that I didn't even know were possible five years ago. Um and they happen all over the place. Like sometimes they'll happen when I'm, you know, uh looking at one of my kids, or maybe I'm talking with my partner. Um and so today, today was one of those moments where I was listening. So Quinn had boxered me and she's going through some tough stuff right now. And I let myself open in listening to her to really just like feeling and being with her in what she's going through. And contrary to what most of us do, which is like we get tense, right? Oh no, my friend's not feeling well or things aren't going well, I need to like fix it. It brought me even closer to that just like deep vein that I think is like the that leads us to the heart of life, which is the reality that all of this will end. Like the only thing guaranteed is that you will die, I will die, all of the people we love will eventually die. And contrary to that, making us pull back or get smaller or want to hide or pull away, I have learned to let that increase my ability to lean in to celebrate both the wonderful happy times and also the times where it's hard and confusing. And um I don't know what's gonna happen from here. And that right there, that ability, even beyond whether you get divorced or not, that is really what I want for you. Now I know that you making this decision around divorce is part of the journey that's gonna help you develop that. But this ability to lean in and be with yourself and stay with yourself and those you love, whether it's sunshine and roses, or whether it's rain and thorns, is what allows you to ride all the waves of life and feel. And yeah, maybe that's just that's like the end-all-be-all is like keep feeling through all of it. You ride these waves, and instead of the waves that knock you down, shutting you down and making you get smaller and making you pull away, they open you even bigger, and you start to really come into this incredible connection with life and the life-death life cycle that I've talked about in a previous episode that is the heart and soul of being human, which is everything is impermanent. Um, so listening today to Quinn and then kind of stopping, and I was voxtering her. And after I finished voxering her, I just sat for a second. I was on my couch, and I was just feeling into my body and noticing, you know, some of that sadness and a little bit of that like worry, like, oof, I want all the people in my life to know that they're safe, to know that they're loved. And like acknowledging in that moment that I don't have the power to do that. I don't have the power to just take everyone and magically um give them what I think they're wanting or what they need. And I turned on this song, which I I don't want you guys to go listen to it yet, but it's part of what I want you to do at this end at the end of this episode is to go sit with yourself somewhere quiet and listen to this song and kind of do what I'm gonna tell you I did. Um, but it's a song by OneRepublic. There, um they just dropped a new album this week that I stumbled upon and I've been listening to it and really loving it. And there's this song on the album that is unlike anything else on the album. It's really, really wild. I feel like they made it like just for me. Um, it's called Singapore. And the first time I listened to it, I was like, oh my shit, this is that feeling. This is that moment. This is what it feels like when I am like dropped into this flow of surrender to the duality of life when I am not resisting the sad and the hard or clinging to the good and the happy, and I'm instead like, yeah, I am here for all of it, and I will feel and be and experience whatever life wants to show me. So I was sitting on the couch and I was just breathing deep and letting this song like pour through me, and it was so beautiful because I felt this like well of source and connection just open up inside of me. And I found my voice just like howling and crying. Thankfully, none of my kids are home. I'm sure Jake was in the other room a little bit like, I'm sure Jake was just like, oh yeah, that's just mom processing. But letting my voice flow out of me, conveying to my ears, to my brain, like the reality of what it's like to be a human, to experience suffering, to experience loss, to love people that will leave, to lose people. Um and as I'm saying this, I'm just thinking through like so many of my individual clients right now who within the last like couple weeks, I would say actually probably the last month, I've had at least two to four of them all decide like they've made decisions, they want to get divorced, and they've talked about it and are moving forward. And watching them do this work of feeling all of it, feeling the grief of the endings, the excitement of the beginnings, and then every range in between, and just how what an honor it is to. Get to be with someone when they're doing that work, when they are coming into I don't know if the words companionship or like connection with the divine, which is the divineness of however your life is meant to unfold when you are following it in a soul-led way. It is one of the most brave things you can do to hear the calls and answer them, even when everything around you, your brain, your cultural conditioning, perhaps your religion, perhaps your family of origin, do not get it, understand it, or support it. And you know, you may only have a therapist and a best friend, uh, like I did, or a coach, or whatever it may be, um, whoever it may be that has got your back and is saying, look, you can trust yourself. I got you, I love you, go forward. So I guess this episode is a little bit about like trying to convey this feeling that I experienced while listening to this song and this much bigger picture that I have when I'm working and when I'm working with all of you and when I'm speaking on this podcast to you of what we're really doing here. It's yes, it is so important, this beautiful, like little microcosm piece of the considering divorce. But what I wish I could have let my pre-divorce self know a little bit more is the like girl, I have got you. Like, yes, yes, we're making this big decision, but ultimately, like, you are opening to so much more. In this decision, you are making like a soul contract with the universe that is gonna lead you into depths, heights, and depths of yourself that you never even imagined. And living in this way is I mean, it's I think it's what we're all seeking when we read books, when we watch movies. We want to be inspired by other people. We want to see people go through hard things and triumph. And um, I feel really, really deeply proud that I have chosen to have that same life for myself in my everyday life. Now, one of the pieces I wanted to break down, kind of like I said in the beginning, where I was like, that does not mean I have this figured out, is what I saw over these last three, four weeks. So, as I think I'd mentioned um in one of the episodes, I went on a trip with my family out to Las Vegas. And um, you know, it was something that I needed to do to know where my edges were, kind of like this is the whole sometimes we have ideas about what's possible, and sometimes we get to get to learn through that experience, I guess, a little bit more about what we need for the creature that we are. So this was a pretty big full send, right? I took three boys and myself on a plane all the way out to Vegas, was with my family taking care of them in an Airbnb until we left, and like the last day I took them to a hotel. So, anyways, what happened was um being in that environment, I realized like I think it was day three, I had a pretty intense emotional flashback come up. And um my really my sister that's closest to me was able to help me through that a lot. And then the next day I had another one, and unfortunately, she was going through one at the same time. So, so my person of resource and her person of resource, we were both unresourced and couldn't be there for each other. And it's been a really long time since I've experienced that. Um, thankfully, due to getting divorced and really, I would say, curating and being intentional about the people that are in my life now, I rarely have moments like that where I am in situations where I don't have people that I can go to for help. Now, granted, I mean, that was definitely the, I would say that was more common for sure in the first two, three years post-divorce, just because I had to lose so much of my family and my community to make that decision. But I felt so much pain while I was there and noticed just how dysregulating and um just yeah, really emotionally painful it was for myself to be in an environment where there really wasn't anybody that I could reach out to that could be there for me in this moment, and how much the trigger was that this had been the norm for my life growing up and even in my marriage. And I'm I'm not saying like, oh, there wasn't somebody, like there are people I could have reached out to, but I'm talking about like soul people who get me, who understand me, who when I go into the like deep details of what my brain is doing, they're like, oh yeah, I got you. You're not crazy. And ultimately, thankfully, later on that evening, I did end up calling Quinn. This is also part of my own, like at times I want to be able to do it all on my own, and and I I want to think that I'm okay and I can be independent and I don't need others. Um, but I've really been learning how important it is to have this interdependence on others. And so um I really wasn't able to regulate or get back in my body or really feel safe until I'd talked to Quinn. And um, once I did, it's not like things were all better. It was really tough. I'd still had like a couple days in Vegas getting home and getting to a hotel with my boys, and then I watched as like I got home, and my partner was also super dysregulated from his own stuff that week, and we were unable to be together due to him having some family stuff. And all of it just, I think what it did is it made me go, wow, I've been through a lot and I want to take better care of myself. I don't want to just be like, yeah, sure, I'm up for that, or let's go do this without really checking in with like, are the people that I need gonna be there? Is the support that will be most comforting for me accessible? And that's really been a different approach than where I've been these last four and a half years. Say the last four and a half years, as you guys heard in the last dating episode, have been a lot of just like go for it, send it, go big or go home, let's roll. And um moving now into more of a space of I don't always have to just push myself so hard to be there for everybody. Um I don't always have to act like I'm not hurting or um and it's not so much that I like I said, that's not so much what I do in my normal life, but in this particular instance, that is what I did, which is very common when we go back and get around like our family members, we can revert back to childhood patterns. And that was a hundred percent what I did. I mean, I'm the oldest of eight kids, um, neither of our parents are in the picture anymore. So, of course, my brain was gonna go back to my like, is everybody okay, caretaking everybody? Um, in some ways, like, not even really realizing how much that was at the expense of myself. So I get home. It really has taken me multiple weeks post that to get back and regulated in my body and feeling good again. There was a part of me that was very much like, I don't want to ever do that again, and I probably won't realistically. I I learned a lot from that experience, and I'm just getting more clear on like where do I want to spend my time and my energy and and realizing I have like, I don't have a limitless amount of that. And I want to spend it on things that really, really fill me as well, not just everybody else. But I did have a mindset that was like, I'm never doing that again. That was such a bad choice. Why did I go? kind of thing. And then there was this moment, I don't even remember exactly what happened, but I felt the like the fog and the pain kind of lift, and I felt myself dropping back into the sweetness of my life. And in that moment, feeling immense gratitude that I had actually gone and done this because that contrast of what it feels like to be around people who are not more secure than me, so can't be a base, you know, can't be a place for me to go, who can't hold space for me, to be back in an environment where I'm pretty much like needing to take care of everybody else, or at least that's what my brain is saying, right? How much that was actually reality looking back. I'm like, yeah. And I had a lot of shame about that too, that I couldn't just go in that space and let everybody be an adult, that I just automatically went into the space of I need to take care of everybody, but giving myself the grace that that is what we're working with. And this is a piece that I wanted to emphasize in this episode when I was sitting there feeling that connection with the divine, I was feeling this like wanting all of you to like pause and just realize what we're working with here. Because for so many of you that I meet, there is much more severe trauma in your childhood than you realize. There is definitely trauma in your current marriages. And I don't know, you know, I can't say for all of you where this idea that like you need to be able to handle it all and you should be able to do it really well came from. I know mine came mainly from my religion, but giving ourselves way more grace, way more love and compassion in what we are asking ourselves to do in taking this leap into living a soul-led life. And that was really, you know, when I was listening to Quinn's message, I could hear her frustration at where she was at and maybe feeling like she should be further along. And boy, do I relate to that. And reminding her, like, babe, we got out of a cult. We got out of marriages where neither of us had jobs or uh a way to make money and provide for ourselves. It's okay that there are still pieces and parts that we're figuring out that are not where we would like them to be. And it's okay that it's taking time for those things to happen. I think that's one of the things I wish I, not that I wish because everything's unfolded, but that if I could send that letter back to my pre-divorced self, I would say, give yourself time, baby girl. It's gonna take time. What we are working with is decades of trauma that you are healing and that it's okay if the journey takes time. Um, I hear from a lot of you who talk about, you know, your disappointment with yourselves that it's taken you this long to make the decision. And when we but when I talk to you and we really dig into like what happened in your childhood, or perhaps how emotionally abusive it gets with your husband when you speak up or you try to do things differently, I'm like, yeah, um, of course you haven't done it. Of course, of course. And that it's okay that it takes however long it takes, that nothing is going wrong as you rewire those neural pathways, as you come back into perhaps not even come back, emerge into loving yourself for the first time and trusting yourself for the first time, especially if you've been in, you know, religions that brainwashed you into trusting an institution or trusting a God outside of you over your own intuition and your own knowing. And I guess to just really like emphasize to all of you how much deeper this work is. What I signed up for when I made that decision was really living like a very soul-driven, soul-knowing life. And that that has not guaranteed everything is easy or perfect, but it has given me this beautiful, I don't know if I would call it an anchor, as much as like a foundation from which to operate of deeply loving and trusting myself. And from that central piece, no matter what I'm going through in my life now, I always have that to return to. Okay. I would say, like, maybe the last time I felt that was sometime last year. So I'm at a point now in my life where that level of dysregulation and everything that comes with that, right? And I want to make this clear that is where my brain goes into like massive childhood mechanisms of self-hatred, self-loathing, suicidal ideation. Um, I'm completely alone in the world, which I know are not confounded. I cannot imagine how I can't imagine because I felt it, but it still blows my mind realizing that me as a child, that is what she lived with every day in the background was the realization that there was really nobody there for her, truly, truly deep down that wanted to know her, love her, see her for the human that she was inside, that all these people wanted from her was for her to be good, to behave, and to ultimately caretake them, right? Because I was very parentified. I was there to manage my children, not my children, sorry, my parents' emotions. So when you start to understand the depth of that trauma and you get to contrast it now for me with what my life is on the regular, there is so much immense gratitude and pride for what I am doing every day to make my life just a little bit more full of me. And that now I don't like where that used to be my everyday growing up, that feeling, to be able to acknowledge and go, oh my God, that is only like maybe once or twice a year that I will have a flashback of that magnitude. And that when those happen, yes, there was there was definitely like spiraling back down into those patterns, which can feel very scary and disorienting. But I have built up this support now to have people who are like, hey, hey, hey, I got you. That's not actually true. And that in coming back, and this is the whole like riding all the waves, being willing to fill the dark and the light, as I've emerged back up into the light, it's filled me with like an even deeper appreciation for what I've accomplished and what I want for all of you, which is a life now where in my everyday life I feel very deeply that like I, and I know I can say confidently, like I deserve to feel safe. I deserve to feel loved. I deserve to be treated well. And I wanted to tie in to kind of illustrate this too. I think a huge piece of this next piece of my journey and softening into more of like, mmm, I've got you. It's safe. We can just keep, um, we can take like better care of you, basically. I think when you come out of divorce, there can be a lot of like, I've gotta make this work. And so there was a lot of like hustle and pushing for me that I had to really step away from and do some self-healing over the last two years, especially with all the drama with my family. Um, but now, especially with having the secure partner that I have, realizing like it's okay to not always have it all together and be the one that's there for everybody else. It is safe with my partner to heal even these like deep, deep, deep feelings, which with him have been, and this would be like another bit in this love letter to my pre-divorced self, it would be like a little, hey, heads up. A part of you believes that when you finally find this like secure partner, that it's gonna be magic and sunshine and roses. And as I kind of hinted at, I think in the dating episode, this has been a whole different level of seeing just how deep the trauma is for me around attachment, around relationships. In fact, this last week I ended up taking, I ended up like definitely having some stuff with him that made me go, okay, what is going on? And it was, it was my own stuff. To contest, like, heads up, y'all. There is a fourth attachment style. I was like, how did I miss this? And I know I missed it because in the book Attached, which is the one I talk about, they don't talk about this fourth style, but there is um the three I've mentioned: secure, anxious, and avoidant. But there is this third attachment style that is called disorganized attachment, which they would say is like the least common and the most severe. Yay! I'm special. Um, because I came back testing very highly for that. And in it, you're you experience both. So not only do you have like anxious attachment, but you can vacillate and you'll also be avoidant. And that's what I was seeing, and what I've seen a lot in this secure attachment partnership that I have, where like a part of me is able to really like, mm-hmm yeah, I'm safe, like the anxious part of me at times. And then out of the fucking blue, there will be avoidant that is like, and I don't want to do this anymore. I want to just be free. Um, and if you go look up, which I I hope to dive into this, there's not a ton of research around it, unfortunately. So I'm kind of hoping to also like maybe add my voice to discussing what this actually feels like. But as I can, because I just found out about it this week, y'all. But it's been huge understanding that and I've already talked with my partner about it, and it really for both of us, I think it helped so much to be like, oh, that's what's been going on. And we could actually like look back at a good like four to five different events over the six months we've been dating that are like, yeah, I'm pretty sure that's your disorganized attachment. And I'm like, yep, it it totally looks like that. So in acknowledging this piece though, as well, it's been this like, and that's okay too kind of feeling, where in the past I think it would. Felt like, oh, insurmountable, like another thing I gotta overcome. I'm just kind of over the like overcoming and thinking that life is gonna one day be just like magically perfect. And instead, I'm leaning into the like, yes, I have a lot of trauma. Yes, I definitely have CPTSD, and it's gonna be something I'm working through the rest of my life. But every day, every week, every month, it gets better because I have, I have taken the steps in the past to put myself in an environment, right? For me, that was choosing to get divorced, where I am safer and I am more supported and I have the life that I need to heal from the childhood that I had. And that's like the bigger picture that I guess I wanted to convey to you guys today of when we do that kind of work, this is the like generational chainbreaker, um, not passing down the shit of our grandparents and our great-grandparents and our parents down to our children because I'm cleaning it up. And obviously, there's still gonna be trauma. I mean, that's a huge today. I had a whole huge freako on my children. We woke up late. It was like high drama. And once again, it was a moment afterwards of going, like, oh wow, we haven't had one of those in forever. Um, yay! Like, really? This is the first time I was just like, yay, because in the past I would have felt guilty that it happened. And I'm at a point now where I'm like, no, I can see how much I am changing and creating a better life for my children. And yes, there's still gonna be moments like this that I will absolutely, when I pick them up from summer camp, be like, y'all, that was on me. I am so sorry I have got you, and um, you know, own that. But it's also like I know what I came from and I know who I'm becoming, and I'm not gonna pretend like that's gonna happen in just one generation, right? My goal is to heal and to open myself to as much love and self-love so that I can also convey that to my children, that with their children, it's just that much better. And it gets carried on down through. And that's that perspective of like, oh my God, look at this incredible, amazing, world-changing kind of work that you are doing in questioning the path that you're on, in admitting maybe this isn't what I want, maybe I want something more, and then being brave enough to do the deep dives to really see yourself, to really know yourself, and to lean in where so much of our culture teaches us to just close your eyes and sit back. So I want to finish out the episode by conveying like, I want you to hear these words as if you are like the only person listening to this episode, which is just that I love you and I see you. I know this journey you're on right now can feel lonely and like you are crazy, or nobody else gets it. For you know, that's just the way the world is. Everybody else kind of has this idea of how to do things, and what you are trying to do is genuinely it is going off into the wilderness, it is stepping off the beaten path and saying, I think there's a different way. And I I trust myself that my soul is calling to me and saying it might be better, so I'm gonna do it. And in acknowledging that, reminding you that you are not alone, I am so proud of you. I am here to tell you that you are absolutely doing it. That thing that you are hoping that you're doing, you're doing it. You're doing it right now in all the small ways, in listening to the podcasts, in, you know, getting therapy, in doing coaching, in reading the books, in just acknowledging what you actually want or how it feels to really exist in your life with the partner that you have, in the marriage that you have. You are doing it. And I am so sending you my love, my gratitude to you for helping to change the world around you by doing the hardest work of all, which is the deep work that nobody else is gonna see, but that only you will know. And I guess also just telling you like it is worth it. It is so worth it. I hope in some ways in the episode, yes, I've conveyed like kind of all the ups and downs. And I know I've told you like it's it's 50-50, but like, yes, my life is 50-50 in that I still go through all the humanness, but that 50-50 is so is worlds away from the 50-50 that my divorce was, that I was when I was married five years ago, because this is a 50-50 that I now get to experience from a foundation in myself, and that deep connection and powerful understanding I have of like what I think uh life is about, what I what I think matters, and I get to live my life from that space, and that makes the 50-50 a totally different game. I swear this is kind of when you read more, I don't know if the words esoteric, but you know, enlightened um individuals, they talk about the whole like you can literally be in the same life in some ways, and like it be heaven on earth, and yet it was the same. There were only just like small things that had to switch. And in so many ways that is the case for me. Like, I live in the same home, I have the same children, but who I am and the foundation I live from in my daily existence is worlds, eons, universes away from the reality I was living in five years ago. So keep leaning in. Keep knowing that you are seen and loved and you are not alone. Part of what I'm most excited about with this community that I'm building is hopefully getting to create a space where you all get to come together and see what I see, which is like you're not crazy. You guys are normal. This is what so many of you are experiencing and wanting. And I'm hopeful that in that space it will create shifts and allow you guys to take leaps and bounds forward in understanding that you're not alone and that it is safe to trust where your soul is calling you and to uh embark on that journey that you think is gonna lead you, right? To what I thought I was gonna have pre-divorce, and it will in many ways, it will lead you to that, but it will lead you to so much more as well. All right, my loves. This was a fun, just kind of off the cuff, straight from the heart episode. Yeah, I just want to also say and encourage any of you that have been wanting to get on those intensives with me. Like I am here for you. I love getting to meet all of you. I haven't really, you know, mentioned that on a couple of episodes, the past few episodes. So I just wanted to take the time, especially if I'm meeting any of you that are new and this is your first episode listening. That it is such a gift to be able to get on in, you know, just 90 minutes and break everything down. And then from there, I actually had someone that I sent the results to afterwards, and she was like, Oh, I didn't realize there was going to be all this beautiful stuff afterwards. So after we coach together for those 90 minutes, I send you an entire email with like everything we talked about, a voice memo, um, discussing the solutions I have for you, and then a resource sheet that gives you books and podcasts that I'm like, here, these are the ones. Go do this. So if coaching with me one-on-one isn't a fit for you right now, this is an incredible alternative, especially if you're looking for something that's more um, you know, getting to do it kind of at your own speed and you're just looking for like what are the next books or resources that are gonna break me open and where are the obstacles, the things that are blocking me? This has been like such an incredible new. I've only been offering them for a couple months now, but I'm really seeing the impact that it can have. So yeah, if you're feeling called to that, go up on my website. It'll be under my one-on-one coaching as the second option. And um I'm steadily plugging away on this community, you all. Um, some of you that have done one-on-one intensives with me are now getting, I've been reaching out to you to do interviews. I'm really trying to dive back into like what is it exactly that y'all are needing so that I can build this community around that. And I'm excited to be releasing it. I'm hopeful, within, I think I'll probably be rolling out some like initial um testing of the community with like groups of like 10 to 20 women. And I'm thinking going forward with the community, I'm not gonna just like open it up. I'm probably gonna open up groups of 10 at a time, potentially going forward. I really want it to just, I want it to be really cozy. I want um people to not get lost in the shuffle. I want this to be a place where you create actual like lifelong friends and people that have your back. So, and I also want it to be super fucking fun and playful and wild and off the cuff and irreverent and all the things you've come to know and love on the podcast. Plus, with just a lot more of me, like, you know, the podcast has to be a little bit more scripted and edited and all the things. This will be a space where if I'm thinking of something, I can just kind of record it and, you know, send it out into the community for everybody to enjoy. So keep an eye out for that. I'll be letting you know how that goes as we keep moving forward. Have a beautiful week, my love.