69: Glowing Up When the World Is On Fire

Quinn opens with a personal update on last week’s co-parenting conversation with Britta and why the extended chat now lives on Britta’s Substack. From there, Quinn digs into a hard question: How do we ethically glow up when Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine, ICE raids, creeping fascism, and inflation are part of daily life?

Her answer: a glow-up ≠ vanity. It’s alignment. It’s choosing where to invest (time, money, energy) and where to divest (relationships, brands, beliefs, guilt) so your life becomes a living declaration of your values. Quinn shares practical examples—from food rescue and ER volunteering to “dance-party therapy” with her kids—plus historic and modern stories of women who glowed under pressure. The close is a rallying cry: You can’t do everything, but you can do something—and that something matters.

Key Takeaways

• Glow-up = alignment. It’s not lashes and Pilates; it’s integrity, clarity, and courage.
• Invest intentionally: community care, ethical spending, practices that keep you strong (therapy, journaling, lifting, rest, prayer/meditation, movement).
• Divest strategically: from draining relationships, exploitative brands, misaligned dating, and the guilt of “not doing enough.”
• One for me, one for we: each day, do one thing that resources you and one thing that serves your community.
• Your portfolio can change. What you invest/divest in will shift with seasons, capacity, and callings.

Mini-Guide: Invest & Divest Checklist

Invest

• Mutual aid / local volunteering (food rescue, shelters, community fridges)
• Showing up (school board meetings, public comment, court support)
• Women-/BIPOC-/locally-owned businesses
• Nervous-system care (therapy, journaling, lifting, nature, sleep)
• Connection & joy (weekly dance party with the kids, friend dates)

Divest

• Relationships that chronically disrespect boundaries
• Brands that profit from exploitation or environmental harm
• Conversations/partners misaligned with core values
• Doomscrolling that drains action
• Guilt for not doing everything

Practical Prompts (Journal or Voice Note)

1. Values audit: What 3 words define my current season?
2. Spending scan: Which 2 merchants this month reflect my values? Which 1 doesn’t?
3. Time audit: What will I lovingly say no to this week to make room for a deeper yes?
4. Daily duet: What’s one thing for me today? What’s one thing for we?

Resources & Links

• Britta’s Substack episode (full co-parenting conversation): HERE or listen to the first 15 mintues HERE
• Find a local food rescue / mutual aid: search “[your city] + food rescue,” “[your city] + mutual aid”
• ER/hospital volunteer programs: check your local hospital’s website under “Volunteer Services”

Try This This Week

• 5-minute money check: Move one recurring purchase to a local or values-aligned option.
• Text two friends: “Volunteering Saturday 8–10am—want to come?”
• 30-minute joy move: Solo dance party or walk—notice how your body wants to move.
• One email of courage: Decline a misaligned commitment without over-explaining.

PostDivorceGlowUp.com

Email: quinn@postdivorceglowup.com

Transcript

0:49

Hello my friends. Last week I dropped the combo with me and Britta about the discomfort of co-parenting. And this past weekend, she and I continued that conversation by focusing on co-parenting with someone who either you or the legal system deems unsafe as has been my experience with my co-parent. It was a really long juicy and. Somewhat challenging conversation to have just because it is so personal to my lived experience. And going back through that story was, Ooh, it was a whole ride for me emotionally. And that conversation is currently on Brita's Substack, where she moved her podcast with all but the first 15 minutes of the conversation behind a paywall. And I mentioned last week that I was planning to record a separate episode on just kind my takeaways from that conversation, which I did immediately following the conversation with Britta. But it was. Just a really janky episode. I think I was just still in all of my flashback and feels it just was not flowing. So after about an hour of bumbling around trying to get it done, I decided to just stop. So those of you who want to hear that episode, you are going to have to access it through Britta. I will put a link to her Substack in the show notes, or if you're already on Substack, you can search for state or go over there. It's a great episode. I think it's between an hour and a half and two hours long, which is cut down tremendously from where the editors started But whew, if that is something that you are dealing with, I encourage you to go and listen to that episode. but today. I want to talk to you about something that has been on my mind specifically through 2025, and it's this idea that how do we reconcile this effort to glow up and improve our lives on an individual level when the world is on fire? And let's be real. It feels like to me that there are flames everywhere. Right now we've got Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine, and that's just three things that I am thinking of overseas that are so heavily on my heart and mind right now. Here locally, I'm looking at ICE raids. Creeping fascism and the inflation that makes my grocery bill Oh, look like it's a bad joke. And that's, that's what's happening here at home. And all of it together can feel really heavy. So if you've ever thought. How can I focus on myself when all of this suffering in the world is happening? You are not alone, but here's the truth. A glow up is not about frivolous self-absorption. It is not a new haircut, dropping 10 pounds a Pilates class or getting the perfect pair of jeans. When I talk about a post-divorce glow up, it's about coming into deep alignment with your values, and for some of you, this is happening for the first time in your life. It's about clarity in what we choose to invest in. And just as importantly, what we choose to divest from. All of this is done with a deep love and respect for ourselves without trying to explain it. To others. There's this scene in the Disney film, Mary Poppins. I wonder if you remember it. The father, Mr. Banks, I think it's after one of the outings that Mary has had with the children, and he's upset, and Mary is walking up the stairs and he yells at her, explain yourself, and she turns and responds very calmly. I don't explain myself to anyone, and then she continues on up the stairs. We don't need to justify our life, our choices, our existence. so many of us socialized as women. Over explain, over justify. And what I want for you and for me is for our lives to feel so aligned that if someone disagrees or is disappointed with our choices. We let them, we let them disagree. We let them feel disappointed without spending our life force defending ourselves. I want my actions to speak so loud as to my values that no one is confused. As to what I stand for, what is important to me, and that has been for me, the process of glowing up alignment, more integrity, more courage. It is not about just looking good, but in being. So much more of myself in doing so much more of what feels aligned for me and living in such a way that I am constantly being stretched and so proud of myself. So let's first jump into defining more about what a glow up really means, and then I want to talk about. Looking at in where we want to invest in our lives that can help ourselves plus those places in our communities that we actually care about as well as where I think it's time we should start divesting. And then I wanna share with you some just practical how-tos, when things start feeling really overwhelming. So let's start with what glowing up really means, because I'm not talking about a surface polish. That's not what coaches are for. That's what hairdressers and makeup artists and estheticians and weight loss programs are for. I am talking about building a life that radiates alignment. When I talk about glowing up, sometimes it's about doing less. It's not about doing more. It's about resourcing yourself. It's about connecting deeply with people who love you and a community that can support you. It's standing tall because your values and your choices. Are congruent and you have so much more to give to the world, to the people that you love and the community that you are building because of that congruent alignment, it's walking into a room with a steady, grounded presence because you're not betraying yourself anymore. There's nothing in the background. You on your husband's arm thinking that. Yeah, we looked like a great couple, but behind closed doors. So much is rotting the divorce. We get to, we get to clean up. So much of that glowing up is finding clarity about your money, how you spend it, how you grow it. It's about your time. How do you spend your time? What is your priority? What relationships are important to you, and which ones are not? And how you spend your energy because money, time, energy, those are our most powerful tools. Those are powerful tools in building a world that we want as well as, powerful tools of resistance. Because in standing up against something, I also want to be standing for something and in standing for something rather than just resisting, I find that I can tap into much more. Energy and motivation and clarity, and that's the glow up that we're talking about today. So let's get practical. One way to think about this is in terms of investing and divesting, what does investing look like in your life? One of the ways I choose to invest is putting my time into community care, showing up at board meetings, checking in on a friend, joining community groups. I have found that, especially this year in feeling so small and like. I don't have the power to take care of the community at large My time when I go to volunteer at a food rescue on Saturday mornings and putting food into people's hands, knowing that this food otherwise would end up in the landfill, and instead it's going to go and feed the humans in my community. It has been such a beautiful experience for me that I, I didn't have that same experience when I started volunteering at the food rescue a few years ago. I went because my kids were gone on the weekends. I still wanted to be around people and we could use some of the produce, but I didn't have that same sense of purpose. But now when. I see there are people starving in the world in Gaza and Sudan and Ukraine, and I can't feed them and how that breaks my heart. But I can feed the people in my community by volunteering for a couple hours on an early Saturday morning. I also volunteer at our local er, so I can't do much because I am not a medical professional, but I can offer warm blankets, I can listen to stories. I can hold someone's hair back while they're dry heaving. I can do these little things. And especially when there is so much death and pain and destruction in the world, that just breaks my heart and I can't do anything for most of the people in the world, but in my local ER for a few hours one day a week. I can sit in communion with people in my community and try to make. A little bit of difference in other people's lives. Investing also looks like choosing where to spend your money. I'm choosing smaller, locally owned businesses. I'm investing in better quality products I am choosing to. Hand my dollars to people in my community that I care about and I want to see them thrive. Investing also looks like pouring energy into practices that keep you strong. It's not just about investing in other people because we have to have a deep well. A, a well pleasured, well resourced body in order to do this work for other people. So it looks like pouring energy into practices like coaching or therapy, or journaling, lifting weights, meditation, going up to a mountain, hugging a tree, having deep rest. Anything that helps fill you. For me, recently it's been about learning to move my body in different ways. I've realized that I have a very small repertoire of how it feels comfortable to move my body, having been raised in purity culture, and so I've invited my children to do a short dance party every night where we turn on some music or a video, and we get to dance and learn how to be more comfortable in our bodies. That is also investing. Now let's shift slightly to divesting and asking ourselves what does that look like? Some of the things that I have chosen to divest in is that. I walk away from relationships that diminish me. if I have a friend or a family member that has a difficult time with boundaries, I divest in my relationship with them I also am being more focused on refusing to invest my dollars in brands that exploit people, exploit workers, or destroy the planet. I also don't date men That think destroying the planet is a good idea, or that the earth will take care of itself if we get too far outta control. The earth is just gonna wipe us out anyway. We don't need to do anything. People who, whose values are not aligned with myself. I just don't choose to spend time with them because I know that me investing in conversations and intimate partnerships with people whose values do not align with mine. It is not a good use of my time right now. Now, there have been times in my life where investing in those relationships and having those conversations with people who disagree with me, that that felt like a good investment. Right now it's not. So even as we speak about investing and divesting, your portfolio of your life gets to change. Another way that I am divesting is releasing the guilt of not doing enough, and instead, I choose what I can do and I stand. Fiercely and clearly on the things that I can do. Now, my mind tends to have a lot of drama about how many kids I have and all the work I need to do and all of the classes that I'm taking. And plus, I, I do this podcast and, and I serve in different people's communities. And I really have to take a step back and look at how I'm spending my time and the stories I'm telling myself because the truth is, right now my schooling is not that challenging. I do have time to do the kinds of volunteer work that I'm doing for our community, and I want to keep doing, I do have time for my children. Like I have built a life that feels really good right now, even though my brain will start telling me stories, telling me that I don't. So just watch that for yourself. That, and it may be true. For some of you that you don't have time for certain things and you've gotta get honest about, maybe it's time to let go of some relationships or some volunteer work or advocacy work and focus elsewhere. Now, I wanna tell you some stories because the truth is we as women have been glowing up under fire for centuries. So, for instance, during the Civil Rights movement, women like Coretta Scott King, she carried the torch She raised children. She led marches. She was speaking truth to power. Her glow up was not about appearances, but it was about embodying courage even when the world was cruel. Even when the world and its hatred for black Americans wanted to kill her. And had killed her husband, One of my favorite glow ups is the story of Gloria Steinem. She divorced early in life and she went on to redefine feminism. She could have just stayed small. She extracted herself from her own marriage, but that was not. Enough for her. Instead, she decided to expand and advocate for other women. She used her skills as a writer and as a speaker to invest in women's liberation and she divested from systems that wanted her to stay quiet. She is an icon in feminism, and if you are listening to my words and you have the ability to start a business and have the ability to file for a no-fault divorce. You owe it to feminists throughout time who have given us the right to vote and the right to exist on an equal playing field, even though we are so far from that equal playing field. Uh. I am so grateful for the women who chose to not just focus on the world that was on fire in front of them, but decided to glow up and to be a beacon of hope for others. On a personal level, when I chose to start coaching women post-divorce. And start a podcast and then when I decided I'm not going to be coaching one-on-one, but I'm going to continue to podcast, that was a huge shift for me. I really want to give a lot of energy to my schooling right now, but I also want to be a voice telling women. You can create a beautiful life post-divorce. I wish that there were dozens. Of post-divorce podcasts, and I want to support other women who are talking about life post-divorce, both the challenges and the solutions. I think investing in our voices and in our stories and lifting each other up is some of the most important work that we can do. And we can do this while the world is on fire because the world truthfully has always been on fire for some level of the population always. And glowing up does not mean that we ignore the world's pain. It means choosing to shine so that you can actually impact the world from a place of deep integrity. So I have some practical how-tos on how we actually live this glow up when everything feels overwhelming. And one of the favorite tools that I use is I, I ask myself questions because our brain loves to give us answers. So if you ask yourself. Why is my life terrible? Your brain will give you lots and lots of answers. Or why am I so tired? Your brain will give you answers. So I'm very careful about the questions I ask myself. So before I commit my time to something, I check in with myself and ask. Am I spreading myself too thin? Is this something that I want to invest in? And at the start of each day, my brain, when I first wake up, it's kind of a, a negative brain. I just refer to it as my brain taking the trash out, and it takes me a minute. I have to go and sweat a little bit and lift some heavy weights to get my brain realigned. And so I just know that about myself and I don't make it mean anything beyond that. When I'm sitting down to get my work done for the day where I have things to do for the children, things to do for school, things to do for my business, things to do for my community, I ask myself, what can I do for myself today? How can I fill myself today? And it might be a nap, a walk. A book, a phone call connection with someone. But I also ask what is one thing I can do for my community? It might be leaving a comment in a Facebook post. It might be sharing an opportunity with my neighbors to join in a protest or go volunteer with me on Saturday. You know, something where I'm building myself and I'm. Building my community. I can do both. And really just asking yourself better questions about. Do I actually need this thing I'm buying? You know where you're investing your money, where you divest your money, how you spend your time, how you divest your time from places that don't feel good, it's really not as difficult. As we make it seem, if more of us just do little things, and there are times where we have the opportunity to do bigger things or to make bigger investments, and when we have been consistently investing in ourselves and our community, that can feel really good. You're not gonna carry the whole world on your back. You're not gonna solve. The problems in Ukraine or Gaza or Sudan or anywhere else in the world, but you can be a person that learns to walk in alignment with your values so that your impact is sustainable and you can help. Where you can, and I am learning that as the world burns with hate and fear and greed, glowing up means contrast. It means that we answer with courage and clarity. And looking at the beautiful in the world and tending to ourselves in ways, uh. Resource us. So if there are things where we can grab a bucket of water to help put out the fire in this world, then we can do that. We can do a bucket and your glow up. It is not. Vanity. It is your resistance. It is your gift to the world because when you are aligned, you are strong, you are unstoppable, and when you shine, you light the way for your children, for your girlfriends, for people that you don't even know have their eye on you and you when you grow up with alignment with your values. Center. You're not just surviving the fire, you're shaping a future where you get to rise from the ashes. We're not in charge of the world burning down, but we are in charge of how we respond to it, and we can do something. We can't do everything, but we can do something. All right, my friend. Go glow up, not just for yourself, but for all of us. All of us. I'll talk to you next week.