62:The Unconscious Pattern That Keeps You From Healing & How to Stop It

Have you ever caught yourself thinking:
 “I’ll finally be okay when he apologizes.”
 “I’ll feel whole when I meet the right person.”
 “I just need closure…”

That, my friend, is what we call a healing fantasy—and this week’s episode is all about busting that myth wide open.

In this raw and revealing solo episode, Quinn explores the healing fantasy trap so many of us fall into post-divorce. Through personal stories, client breakthroughs, and the wisdom of thought leaders like Byron Katie, Eckhart Tolle, and Brené Brown, you'll uncover why waiting for external validation, rescue, or resolution delays your true healing.

Quinn walks you through how to step out of the fantasy and into your real power—right here, right now.

In this episode, we explore:

💔 What the "healing fantasy" is and why it keeps you stuck
 🔄 How we unconsciously delay our healing by waiting for someone else to change
 🧠 The real reason your ex’s apology wouldn’t actually change anything
 🪞 Why The Notebook is a dangerous lie—and Eat Pray Love is your new truth
🧘🏽‍♀️ Three practices to reclaim your present power: presence, vulnerability, and courage
💪 A five-step framework to begin healing right now
🎯 Client stories that show the difference between fantasy and true transformation

Power Quotes from the Episode:

“The healing fantasy is putting your happiness on layaway—hoping someone else will come along and pay it off. But the only person who can claim it is you.”

“You don’t heal when your life gets easy. You heal when you do the hard things and stay soft anyway.”

“If you’ve been waiting for someone to come rescue you, go to the mirror. That’s the face of your rescuer.”

Listener Challenge:

What’s your healing fantasy?
 Where are you waiting for something outside of you to fix something inside?

This week, call it out—and take one brave action to shift back into the present.

Mentioned in this Episode:

• The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
• Loving What Is by Byron Katie
• The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown
• Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
• The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks
• The quote by Mel Robbins: “No one is coming.”

Connect with Quinn:

💌 Email: quinn@postdivorceglowup.com

PostDivorceGlowUp.com

Email: quinn@postdivorceglowup.com

Transcript

0:49

Hello my friends. Welcome back to the Post-Divorce Glow podcast. I am so glad you're here My kids are back in school. I've got four weeks of break left before I'm back in school, so I am reading a lot of. Books, one of my daughters turned me on to the Poppy Wars trilogy. I'm enjoying that. I'm leaning into my social life while I have the time, and I am trying to prepare my kids for some additional chores like meal prep and cleanup that I am probably going to need to ask them to do. Once I am full-time in school, but creating something new in your life, I have accepted it is sometimes messy. Sometimes that two steps forward, one step back process. Speaking of which, today I wanna talk to you about something that so many of us do without realizing it, and it's something I didn't realize I was doing. Until a friend used the term healing fantasy in a conversation we had this weekend, she realized that she was stuck spinning in some things because she had this healing fantasy that life would be better. When certain things happened or that she could have some great healing and dealing with childhood trauma, and then she would never have to deal with it again. And I realized how often I do this. I too have these healing fantasies, and I also see it In women especially coming out of divorce. a healing fantasy. Have you heard this term before? This was the first time my, my ears just really peaked up when she said this. It is this belief that if we can just find the right person or the perfect therapist or maybe get that closure, that apology that we deserve, then, then we will be okay. Then we will feel whole, then we will stop hurting as if we can avoid being human. And suddenly we will be able to live in a world in which we don't have regrets. We don't feel ashamed. We always speak up for ourselves, and we feel confident doing it, that there is this fantasy world where all of those things are possible. I get it. I get it. I lived there for a long time in multiple areas of my life. I truly believed after my husband, especially after he accused me of murder. And if you don't know that story, I think it's episode three or four, of this podcast, you can go back and listen to that. I believed that if he would finally say, you were right, I was wrong. You didn't deserve that. Then I was going to be able to forgive him and move on. Or if I found a partner who could show up 100% all the time and love me the way I wanted to be loved, then all my wounds would heal. But girlfriend, here's the truth. That was a fantasy and it is a fantasy. Yeah. This is something you may also see in your children or others around your divorce, though their story may be something about, well, if there hadn't been this divorce, then Insert fantasy, then the child wouldn't have behavior problems or then there wouldn't be mental health challenges, or then there wouldn't be financial challenges, or then there wouldn't be insecurities. It is a fantasy. I recall a very specific moment at a stoplight when I thought. What would actually change in my life if my husband apologized for accusing me of murder? And I realized in that moment nothing would actually change other than I would allow myself to think new thoughts and believe new things about my husband, about myself, about our relationship. I wouldn't recreate my marriage. I couldn't bring my son back to life. nothing would actually materially change just my thoughts and my feelings. And then I realized I could change those now without another conversation. With my ex. So when I let go of that healing fantasy, I was able to see what power I had. In the moment and in the moment I stopped waiting to be rescued, especially by someone who was never, he's not gonna rescue me. That was the moment I was actually able to start doing a lot of healing. If you're familiar with Mel Robbins, you're probably familiar with this quote where she says, no one is coming. No one is coming to get you off the couch. No one is coming to apply for that dream job. No one is coming to get your butt to the gym. No one is coming to start that business for you. No one is coming to change your life. Stop waiting to create the life you want and start. Taking action. Your life is your responsibility. Start acting like it. So what does this have to do with a healing fantasy? A healing fantasy keeps us away from our. Ability to actually take responsibility for our life. It's a belief and it's usually unconscious. it's a belief that something outside of us is going to fix what's broken inside of us. It might sound like. If he would apologize, I could move on, or when I meet the right man, I will feel secure or once I move, get a new job. Or lose 20 pounds, then I'm going to be happy. It's a beautiful hope and there's just something so intoxicating about hope for the future. And I've gotta say, especially as a single mom, I live on hope it's very difficult for me to consider that the future isn't always bright because. I desperately, desperately want a beautiful future for my children, but living on hope, especially when it keeps you from taking action or it, it gives you the excuse of giving away your responsibility for your life and placing it in someone else's hands or some other circumstance that's not completely in your control. It's dangerous. It's like when Byron Katie genius, genius woman, love her so much. If you haven't read her books, they're so good. But she is quoted saying, when you argue with reality, you lose but only 100% of the time. So when you are waiting for something to happen so you can feel better. You are arguing with reality. That is exactly what the Healing Fantasy does. It argues with the present. It says, this moment that I have in front of me right now is not enough. I need a different reality in order to feel peace or to feel safe, or whatever it is. It's like putting your happiness On layaway and hoping someone else is going to come along and pay it off, but the only person that's gonna come and claim your happiness girl is you. It's you. Do you remember the movie The Notebook, my girls watched it this weekend. That is a healing fantasy. It's this idea that everything will be better when we find that one true everlasting love. And that's kind of Nicholas Sparks the author of The Notebook. That's his mo. He's become very good at selling women these healing fantasies. Now compare that to a book written by a woman. Eat, pray Love by Liz Gilbert and it tells the true story of the messiness of leaving a marriage falling apart. Her world travels, the crying the eating of carbs, the meditation, and, and slowly over time, she becomes someone who can hold herself that. Is true healing in real time and real healing is what we're after. So why is it a problem to have a healing fantasy? What does it actually cost us? Number one, it costs us. presence. It keeps us locked in the past with blaming or in the future with fantasizing about a moment that doesn't actually exist and may never exist, but when we put the present on hold so that we can. Play in the mess of the past or fantasize about the perfection of a future that isn't here. We miss out on the part of life that we actually have, which is right now we miss the now the most precious thing that we have. We miss our actual life. Now, certainly there have been parts of my life where I was all for missing out on it. I wanted to sleep as much as I could. I was in so much pain for a variety of reasons, and so I get it. There are times where we really do want to get out of the present, but usually. Us wanting to get out of the present isn't because of the present moment. It's because the stories that we have about the present moment based on things that have happened in the past or things that we think are going to happen in the future. I had a client who waited two whole years to start dating again not because she didn't feel like she was ready. She kept saying, I just need closure first. And closure. What that looked like was her ex needed to give her closure. So when I finally gently asked her, and what if he never gives it to you? What if closure isn't something that he can give you? Because they had had a lot of conversations, but it was never ever enough, and I asked, what if closure is something you can give to yourself? And that conversation shifted her when she realized that in spite of having so many conversations with her husband, she was never able to get to that feeling, that healing fantasy of what closure would feel like, and she was willing to step into the messiness. Of having all of the feelings and letting it be confusing and not packed away in a neat little box that she could just, you know, say, well, that's done, but she stopped waiting for someone else to do it for her. She decided to do the work to free herself. Another client was positive. Positive that when she separated from her husband, she would gain the desire and the discipline to finally exercise and lose weight and reverse her diabetes, even though never in her entire life had she had the desire and discipline to do that for herself. And we know what happened, right? She didn't suddenly change overnight moving out of the marital home. She. Took her brain with her, the same brain that kept thinking I'll start tomorrow, or she ha also had a lot of resentment about societal standards of what it looks like to be conventionally attractive. And so she always felt this kind of, this resentment and this anger and rebellion about having to lose weight to the point that she was risking her life with diabetes. But when she moved out and nothing changed, that's when she started to question her own responsibility because she had put so much responsibility on the stress of the marriage and how her husband was shaming her and questioning how she was eating. That when she was finally in a space where she felt safe and it was her space, She didn't magically lose weight, but what did happen is that she did start to take more responsibility for how she thought and how she felt and the actions she took in her life. Our healing fantasy delays, our actual healing. It puts us in a holding pattern, and sometimes we use it to avoid doing the harder, deeper work of actually sitting in the present moment with our pain and questioning where is all of this coming from and being willing to sit with it, knowing. It may never dissolve. This may be what my life looks like. I may continue to have anxiety, or I may continue to have this insecurity and taking action anyways. So think about the media's obsession with a post-divorce glow up. It's all about new hair. The revenge body moving to a new city luxury vacations. Now, don't get me wrong, I love a good transformation. But the real glow up isn't all of that stuff that people can see on the outside. It's learning how to sit with your grief, sit with your loneliness, your rage, and to say, I'm not afraid of you anymore. I used to be so impressed with before and after glow ups and not just post-divorce, like anybody that like changed their physical appearance, the before and afters. I loved them and I wanted to be one of those people, but I see now that while it can be a fun thing, It's not a firm foundation for truly showing up in your life. If through the process of building a healthy body or. Choosing to move to a new location or having a new career or clothes that flatter your body or taking care of yourself in a way that feels more congruent. If doing all of those things help you actually fall in love with your life and who you are. That is the treasure. That is what we are after. So if the healing fantasy. If it's a trap that keeps you spinning and out of the present moment, what is the way into the present moment? What, how do we escape a healing fantasy? It's actually three practices. It's presence, it's vulnerability, and its courage. So let's start with presence. When you realize that the present moment is all you ever have, you can make it the primary focus of your life. And why would you want the present to be the primary focus of your life? Louise Hay. She once said, the point of power is always in the present moment, so if you wanna change your life, it's not happening tomorrow. It's not happening next week. It's happening. It whatever the present moment is This means instead of asking. When am I gonna feel better? Or telling yourself I'll take action when I feel better. Instead, we ask ourselves present moment questions like, what am I feeling right now? I. What do I need right now? And instead of waiting for someone else to validate either what we need or our pain, we validate it ourselves in this moment. I have a client right now who has struggled to feel like she belongs, and it's a big. I don't feel like I belong in my family, in my social circle in my life, and you would not know it from looking at her. She is gorgeous, has a prestigious technical degree, is the life of the party, gets hit on constantly, and yet her healing fantasy put feeling like she belongs somewhere in the future. And dictated by someone else, some kind of relationship or something other than herself, to give her that sense of belonging. And it wasn't until she was willing to process those emotions in real time, like in this moment. I feel like I don't belong. And really sitting in her body with those vibrations and choosing to face them in the present moment that things started to shift. The point of power is in the present moment. It's not somewhere in the future. next is vulnerability. Byron Katie. It teaches about questioning your thoughts, especially the painful ones. So when you hear that voice say, he should have treated me better, I want you to pause and ask yourself, who would I be without that thought? What if you didn't need to judge your ex, your boss, your B, f, F, or anyone in your life at all? Now, this doesn't mean you don't have boundaries and protect yourself. Y'all know I am fastidious about limiting my contact with my ex because of his violent language and actions. But I'm also not willing to give him more credit than he deserves for how I'm doing in my life. The truth is, you know this, we can't change the past, but we can free ourselves from the mental prison that we have built around the past. The adage from Marcus Aurelius is so on point with this. When he said, the man who can make me angry is my master. That's one I have to work on a lot, especially as I read the national news, and not just necessarily emails from my ex, but what Byron Katie is talking about is that when we start questioning these painful thoughts that cause our suffering and ask ourselves, who would I be? Without that thought, and I ask that to my clients all the time, and usually when someone is honest about who they would be without a painful thought, their first reaction is a sense of physical relief in their body, like a deep sigh and a realization that they do have some say about whether or not they hold on to painful thoughts or healing fantasies. And then finally coming in strong is Brene Brown, the queen of courage and messiness and vulnerability, She has this beautiful quote, vulnerability is not winning or losing. It's having the courage to show up when you can't control the outcome. Ugh, girlfriend, am I the only one that wants to control the outcome? Ugh, God, I want to. I want to control things every day, and so surrendering into the messiness of life and having the courage to live knowing I don't get to control the outcome. It is an exercise in trust. Healing happens when we stop waiting for it to be perfect and we just show up. One of the rules I have for my clients is that they're not to apologize to me if they come into our appointment late. If they are crying and their face looks a mess, fine, all of that is fine. What I do not. Like is for women to apologize for not being perfect because healing happens with the scars, with the mascara running down your face with a messy kitchen with kids who are sassy. All of that. Can be going on and we can be healing when we let go of the fantasy of what healing should look like and we just start doing the work, the actual work of healing. So sometimes that means you make that therapy appointment. Sometimes it means you have a hard conversation. And sometimes it's saying, I'm scared, but I'm still going to try. You don't heal when your life gets easy. There's, is there such a thing as an easy life? I don't know anyone that has an easy life. The healing happens when you do the hard things and you choose to show up for yourself and stay soft anyway. So here's how to break the cycle to stop outsourcing our healing to a fantasy. Number one, you catch yourself when you think I'll be happy, when I'll be happy when my kids are grown. I'll be happy when my ex does this thing or when he moves his things out of the garage. There's so many of you that still have these really interesting ties to your husbands and have these ideas, you'll be happy when. So catch that. That's catching the pattern and finding yourself in a healing fantasy is that that is foundational. That's step number one. And then you come back to the present moment and ask yourself, what am I feeling right now? And it could be, I'm feeling frustrated, I'm feeling angry. I'm feeling discombobulated. I'm feeling vulnerable. I'm feeling afraid, and breathe into it. Notice how that feels in your body. Number three, question your belief. Start using Byron Katie's work to unravel your thoughts. Ask yourself, who would I be without this story? Is there a better story? I can tell myself, is it possible that what's happening right now is actually happening for me? There doesn't have to be a specific answer to these questions. But just notice if you're able to give yourself more space around your thoughts by questioning them. And then number four, take one, brave action. Even if you're shaking, even if you're afraid, you know, especially if you're shaking, especially if you're afraid. Take one brave action. what is the one brave action that you need to take in your life? And then number five, celebrate those tiny wins because showing up for yourself is the win. Looking at your bank account, getting the checkup to see if you do actually have pre-diabetes. God, the number of you out there who are afraid to go to the doctor because you're afraid you have pre-diabetes or diabetes. Girlfriend, stop it. Go to the doctor if this is you, go get a checkup. Let's get you healthy girl. Okay? back to the program, or if you need to send a vulnerable text or block someone once and for all. Celebrating those tiny wins instead of some big fantasy where I have to lose all 20 pounds and then I can be happy. I need to be in this relationship. Then I'll be happy. I need to always feel confident. Then I'll be happy. Let go of the fantasies. And celebrate the ways in which you show up for yourself and put the drops in the bucket to create the environment where you are healing day by day. You don't need a fairytale ending. You need your own damn permission to live fully right now, Let go of the fantasies. if you've been waiting for someone to come rescue you, and I think most of us have been, let's just be honest about it. most of us socialized as women are fed this fantasy that someone will come rescue us and that someone is usually a man, which makes it challenging for women coming out of a divorce. Okay, so if you've been waiting for someone to come rescue you, I want you to walk to your mirror and look at your reflection because that is the face of the person who's going to rescue you. And she is wise, she's strong, she is tender, and she is done waiting. You don't need anyone else to make you whole. You already are. And if you ever forget, just come back here and I'll remind you. I'll remind you that you are whole and worthy and perfect. just the way you are. And we can all heal together. Healing isn't something we have to wait for, is something that we can do right now in this moment. One brave, messy, beautiful deep breath, step at a time. All right. I am always cheering for you. I'll talk to you next week.