59: Practicing Calm: Building Emotional Muscle Memory Post-Divorce

It’s not magic. It’s muscle memory.
Quinn returns this week with a powerful message: your glow-up isn’t built in the moments of clarity—it’s built in the reps. Drawing from personal stories (including cult recovery, parenting nine kids, and coaching women post-divorce), they share how practicing calm, boundaries, and new emotional habits is the key to becoming who you really want to be.

In this episode:

• The science + stoicism behind “we don’t rise to our expectations, we fall to our training”
• What Beyoncé, Serena Williams, and your post-divorce life have in common
• How Quinn learned to be a calm parent after 12 years of yelling
• What emotional habits you’re unconsciously rehearsing
• How to teach kids to regulate and how to practice asking for what you want in love
• Powerful practices for boundary-setting, nervous system healing, and changing your self-concept

You’ll also get a weekly challenge to train for the version of you who thrives.

Quote of the episode:

“If you wait until you’re in the fire to learn how to breathe, you’re gonna burn.”

PostDivorceGlowUp.com

Email: quinn@postdivorceglowup.com

Transcript

0:49

Welcome back to the podcast. And how is your post-divorce life going? I hope you are doing well. It's been a great summer for me with my kids back home the past couple of weeks. Of course there have been adjustments and some come to Jesus moments and as an ex Christian, I find that to be a very funny phrase. for my non-native English speakers, a come to Jesus moment. It's a. Colloquial phrase, meaning that we've had some serious talks. The kind where I firmly lay down the law of how my home operates and my kids are great. They're very respectful, very kind, And most of these conversations had to do with the tone of voice that my children were using with each other because they're not always very kind with each other. But since we had those conversations, there's been a marked change in the temperature in my home. Now, for those of you that don't know, I have nine children. Yes. I was in a cult and only four are currently at home. So I'm. Basically an empty nester. I got divorced when I had six children still at home, and my older children had a very different mother than these younger children. I currently coach several women who struggle with parenting post-divorce. As their children adjust to new dynamics, they may complain and blame their mother for what's happened. They may act out sometimes violently towards their mother. Now this episode is also for those of you who don't have children, because what I wanna talk about really isn't about parenting. If you find yourself getting triggered by being human, spinning around in your head about the divorce or your job or finances a new relationship, your boss, this is for you as well. I want to talk to you about the skill. Of getting calm, and I want to begin by explaining what I mean by calm, because there is a scary kind of calm, like a horror movie. What's gonna happen next? Kind of calm. We're not talking about that. This also isn't the calm of disconnection or the. Flight side of the fight or flight response, the kind of calm that I want to encourage us to develop the skill in creating is a calm of being intensely present so that you can give yourself the support and love that is needed in that moment. If you have ever been really bad at something and developed the skill to become good at it, you know, the thrill of skill acquisition in the past year of going back to school, I have been amazed at my mind's ability to begin the week knowing absolutely nothing about a subject, Whether it was statistics or chemistry or human physiology, and by the end of the week I had a semi-solid understanding, and it's the same with lifting weights and watching my body get stronger. We can learn. The type of learning I wanna focus on today is part muscle memory and physical practice, though there is a mental component. This isn't a skill I've always had, but I've gotta say at this point in my parenting especially, it is a superpower. I am very good at being a calm parent. I've been able to translate that into calm interactions that could have gone sideways in a multitude of ways, whether it was While I was filming an ice raid, or I was at a protest or interacting with a patient in the emergency room, my oldest was actually 12 when I learned how to calm myself, which means that he and my older children had years of a mother who was chronically dysregulated. I yelled, I threatened. I punished, I shamed. I felt so much shame within myself for how I was showing up as a parent and as a partner. It was after a day of me yelling at the kids, the kids yelling at each other, their dad yelling at them. I locked myself in my bedroom and I vowed. That I was going to learn how to be a calm parent. I wanted to be calm and be able to parent at the same time because I could be calm in my bedroom by myself and I could parent. But getting those two to happen at the same time was a practice, and this is a practice that you can do as well. This skill of learning how to. Face, a child having a tantrum or an ex-husband threatening you, a family member making passive aggressive comments, or a random person honking at you with agitation and road rage, and you remaining calm. This pays huge dividends, mostly in peace of mind, but it can also Pay huge dividends, long term in the fact that you will have relationships that last you will be able to set boundaries. It translates into raises and getting more responsibility at work if that is something that you desire. There is this old maxim that says, we don't rise to the level of our expectations. We fall to the level of our training. We fall to the level of our training. This isn't just some. Philosophy, it is biology. When you are under stress, your nervous system isn't scanning for your highest self or thinking about that serene vision that you hold for yourself in your morning meditation. It is scanning for what's familiar, which is probably the most reactive, most practiced animal instinct. So when your ex sends a text that makes your blood boil or your kid rolls their eye and slams a door, or your date ghosts you, you're not going to magically become calm and wise unless, unless you've rehearsed and practiced being calm and wise beforehand. We kind of take for granted that, you know, of course professionals do this. We don't expect an athlete or an entertainer to just show up and be great. Of course, they have to put in lots of reps hours of practice. Beyonce doesn't just scroll onto the stage at Coachella without months of rehearsal. She practices until her body could do it without thinking. It's called Muscle Memory. Serena Williams, she didn't serve ACEs because it was on her vision board and she was inspired, and her game was just on that day at Wimbledon. She practiced 500 serves a day. She put in the reps. Taylor Swift didn't memorize a three and a half hour ERAS tour set just by winging it. Just because she wanted to or it felt like something that would be good. So I want you to consider what are you practicing? There are things in your life that you could be doing on a professional level, level, whether it is how you parent, how you show up in your relationships, the way you manage your money, whatever it is. But in order to do that, you have to practice. So what are you practicing? Because you're practicing something. For those first 12 years of my parenting journey, I was practicing dysregulation. I was practicing control. I was practicing giving my children. C-P-T-S-D. I have so much pain and shame around that, and there's nothing I can do about that, but I can change how I practice now, how I parent now, the person I am practicing to be. Are you practicing doom scrolling after a hard conversation? Are you practicing getting drunk every night? Are you practicing starving yourself? Are you practicing saying yes when you really wanna say no? Are you practicing pretending everything is fine when actually you're crumbling and you really do need more support? Because every repetition, every time you react instead of respond is reinforcing a neural pathway. And it becomes easier and easier to show up in that way, and that's why it is automatic. I love how James Clear put it in Atomic Habits. He said, every action you take is a vote for the type of person you want to become. So let's reframe this a bit. So when you start practicing these new skills, you're not just breathing through the frustration, you are casting a vote for the woman who knows that her peace is power. You're not just pausing before texting your ex back. You're rehearsing self respect. You're rehearsing how to set a boundary. You're not just walking away from an argument with your kid. Instead of screaming, you're training yourself to be a cycle breaker, the matriarch, this future elder maternal leader that you needed when you were little. This is how emotional strength gets built, not during the performance. But backstage in the unglamorous practice rounds, the messy morning routines, the redos, the breathe before you break so much of your post-divorce glow up, or lack thereof, is incredibly unglamorous. It is incredibly boring because it's a matter of putting in the reps, the end results. Can be very sexy, very fun. You can have the body, the job, the relationship, all of those things. But getting there, there is no training montage for your life. It is putting in the reps, building the emotional strength. I want to mention a couple of ways that I instruct my clients to start doing this the best way, especially in a parenting context or any kind of relationship context. So this could be a lover, it could be a co-parent. The most important thing is that we don't practice getting calm. from a place of being triggered or dysregulated, the best time for me to practice teaching my children skills, like how to disagree appropriately with me. How to follow instructions, How to accept consequences. How to accept a no answer is to turn it into a game. And so for instance, you might call your kids together and say, we're gonna learn this skill about how to follow instructions, and maybe you place some things around the room. One of the rules in my family is that we speak to each other with a calm voice, face and body. So it can't just be our voices calm. Our face also has to be calm. So eye rolls. Those are not calm or arms crossed. That is not a calm body. So we first practice, what does a calm voice face? A body. Look like, sound like move, like stomping. That is not a calm body, and I'm okay waiting for a child to get calm, but I allow my children to practice as well. Giving your children the opportunity to practice how to get calm. It is so life changing because if they can manage themselves, they begin to see how many adults are mismanaged, how many adults cannot manage to self-regulate and self govern. I. So giving your child the opportunity to practice these skills, like I'm going to give you an instruction, and so with a calm voice, face and body, I want you to follow the instruction and then come and tell me that you did it. And so I might say, go pick up that package of M and MSS over there, and they'll say, okay. And they'll go and pick it up and they'll bring it back to me and say, here are the m and ms, thank you. And I'll give, you know, lots of praise and whatnot, but turning it into a game so that when the time comes and I'm going to give them an instruction and maybe they're feeling a little dysregulated, I can remind them, Hey buddy, I'm gonna give you an instruction. And so I want you to see if you can get. Yourself to a place of having a calm voice, face and body. And then I'm gonna give you the instruction and you're gonna say, okay, you're gonna go and do it, and then you're going to come back and tell me that you did it. And now they know how to do it. I've laid out the instructions ahead of time. they're relying on the muscle memory of the game that we played together. Another way that this can be used is if you have a hard time asking for what you want from your lover, for instance, and you want to get better at setting boundaries or asking for what you want, playing a game with them. Is also a great way to do it. So maybe there's a variety of lingerie or a variety of options for the way you wanna play that evening or where you want to go, but communicating with your partner and just saying, I have a difficult time asking for what I need, and I wanna ask for your support. So I want to just play this game with you and. What I want from you is when I say This is what I want. I want you to say, okay and be supportive. And it, when you practice it in a game format with low stakes, it can just feel so much easier so that when the time comes when you need to make the ask or you want to make the ask, that feels. A little bit spicy in your nervous system. You have already practiced and your partner has practiced learning to respond in a way that feels good to you as well. Make it fun. It doesn't need to be super serious, but there does have to be practice this Another emotional habit and muscle memory that you can practice today is. Your boundary voice. I want you to practice speaking up for yourself in a way that comes from deep within your guts. So you're not saying, I understand that's your opinion, but I see it differently. You're saying, I understand that's your opinion and I see it differently, or, let me think about that and I'll get back to you. Or. I'm not available for that. I want you to practice. Speaking from a place of strength. Now, some of you, no problem. You've got your boundary voice, you've got this, this deeply rooted voice where you can speak up for yourself. A lot of people don't. A lot of my clients, we have to practice conversations. That they see as being challenging, setting boundaries with a family member or boundaries with a co-parent that they've let things kind of slide. We will go through entire practice conversations so that they can practice what they want to say. Over and over and over again. They say it in the mirror. They say it when they're driving. They say it until it doesn't feel terrifying. It just feels like lyrics like, I can do this. I can speak this way. I've got myself. That boundary voice is one of your most powerful tools. You hearing you standing up for yourself in your own voice. Is powerful, but it takes repetition. Look at yourself in the mirror and say the things that you need to hear. Another tool that we can practice is when we have a trigger that. We know this is gonna happen and you have the urge to say, doom scroll after texting your ex and you find communicating with him. Highly charged. So keep a list. I. Of instead of doom scrolling and make a list of things you're going to do instead, whether it's I'm gonna do yoga for five minutes, I'm gonna do three rounds of box breathing. I'm gonna take a dance break. I am going to do some EFT tapping. I'm gonna journal, I'm gonna pause and ask myself, what do I need right now? And I'm going to journal the answer to that. So as a reminder, the kind of calm we're talking about is being very present, like being so present for yourself that you start hearing what you need. And it might be something physical like yoga or dancing or breathing. It might be holding yourself, putting on a weighted blanket. It might be crying, it might be yelling. It could be all of these things. The kind of yelling I'm talking about is like yelling into the void, not yelling at a person, like yelling into a pillow, moving that energy through your body. Most of us know what those triggers are, whether it's 9:00 PM I gotta go to bed, I think I'll have a glass of wine or a bowl of ice cream or something like that. Or I've gotta have a hard conversation with a co-parent or my teenager just slammed their door, or bills are coming due. Choose the trigger. And rehearse your response as if you are training for it. One of the things that the stoic philosophers recommended was going to the worst case scenario, and I find for a lot of my clients it is very useful. For them to really dig down and figure out what is it I'm so afraid of, or what's the worst thing that could happen if I have this conversation with my co-parent or mother-in-law or something like that. So when you are rehearsing your calm, let's go to the very worst case scenario and let's do everything we can. To think through what am I going to do to mitigate that worst case scenario that I'm afraid of, but I'm gonna think through it because it is possible. Maybe this does happen and I'm going to think it through because so much of our anxiety and stress and inability to stay calm in the moment is that. We haven't thought through. We're just so full of all of the anxiety and fear. But if we take time to practice being calm, like if this happens, if I lose my home, if I can't pay my mortgage, this is what I will do. And to just have the plan. Many times that can bring a sense of calm to our nervous system. We build this like a muscle. We build calm into our lives. Now that being said, for many of us, being calm feels unfamiliar. It can feel fake, and there are some people who may try to whip up a little drama. When they're in the unfamiliar feeling of being calm, and that's okay. That's okay if you do that, but just know as you build this muscle of being calm, it will begin to feel more and more familiar and it will feel better and better. And it's okay if it doesn't feel quote unquote good. And if it feels unfamiliar when you start doing this. I also wanna warn you that even if you have conversations and play these games with your kids and teach them how to be calm or how to respond, how to have a relationship that creates more peace in your home or with your partner, even if you have a conversation and say, I wanna learn how to ask for for my needs, it doesn't mean that these other people change. And so I just want you to be aware of that we're not doing this for other people to change. This is for you. This is for you to experience more calm in your own life, more presence for yourself and how other people show up that that's none of your business, babe. This is for you. Your glow up. It's not about moments of clarity. It's not listening to this and going, oh yeah, I get it. Quinn, you're right. That's not gonna do anything. Your glow up is built in moments of repetition. You casting those daily votes for the woman that you want to be, and it's not about becoming perfect, but it is about becoming prepared. Because the more prepared we are, and it's not about control either. It's like, yes, things come outta left field. Like two nights ago I got a call, I was already in bed for my son because he got a flat tire coming home from work and it was, he destroyed attire, so we had to have the car towed and it was a whole thing. But as soon as he called, I was able to go deeply into a place of calm. Is there anyone hurt? Are you okay? Are you in a safe place? I'm on my way, everything's gonna be okay. And I was able to hone in because I have practiced building that sense of calm this deep well that my children can draw from as well. If you have a regulated, calm, nervous system. It's so healing and nurturing for the other people in your life. Now I sometimes my nervous system gets lit on fire too, and I need help and I need someone to hold me and I need to be able to cry and to anger and to feel and all of the things. So it's not about becoming flat in what we feel. We're just adding this to our repertoire. But you have to know if you wait until you're in the middle of the fire to learn how to breathe, you're gonna burn up. But if you practice staying cool before the fire has even been lit, you'll be able to walk through that fucking fire without melting. So, so girlfriend, here's your challenge for the week, pick one emotional habit you want to change. Not five, not three, just one. Seriously, just one. Maybe it's stopping the urge to people. Please. Maybe you say no instead of Yes. Maybe it's pausing before you reply to a text. Maybe it's drinking water and sending yourself to bed instead of pouring a glass of wine at 9:00 PM and I want you to practice your new response every damn day. Say it, visualize it, script it, rehearse it like it's opening night on Broadway, and the spotlight is on you. You are not broken. You can learn. You are not too old to change. Do not come at me. Do not come at me with, I'm too old. What you are is wise and you are now wise enough to choose differently. So until next time my friend. Practice. Practice who you want to be over and over until she shows up without effort. You got this. I'll talk to you next week.