Focusing on the Glimmers

A Glimmer is the opposite of a Trigger.  We know what it means to be triggered - when we are flooded with negative emotions unexpectedly. So then a Glimmer is when something good happens and makes us smile. Sometimes it's really small - tiny even.  A warm cup of coffee - a beautiful sunset. Can we teach ourselves to take the time to appreciate and acknowledge the good things, even when they are small?  

Transcript

Hi, my name is Tiffany, and welcome to the podcast, Working on Amazing. This is our very first episode, so let's go over some basics.

Let's talk about things like, who is this podcast geared toward, and what type of topics we'll be covering in future episodes. So right off the bat, this podcast is geared towards women, women most likely who are going through a divorce.

You maybe have gone through a major breakup, maybe you never got married, but you were long-term partners. And even possibly could be there for people who have lost a spouse.

But most typically, this is really for women who are going through a divorce, women who plan their life and their future with another person, and that person isn't there. So if that is you, I understand that it feels kind of overwhelming.

All your plans for the future just kind of go up in smoke suddenly, and you've got to start rebuilding. You got to rebuild your life in the middle of your life. And that does not feel good.

It actually kind of made me angry. But if that is you, I do want to say you are not alone. And what I found, even though when I was going through it, it did feel lonely, and I'm sure you probably feel lonely.

You're not alone. So many women have gone through it. I've talked to countless women who have gone through this process.

And the good news is they've come out on the other side better for it. And my thought is, why should we all go through this process alone, blindly?

Why don't we start kind of sharing what worked and our tips and our tricks and how we got through this? Because it is a tough season, right? It definitely felt like a dark night of the soul for me.

Figuring out and refinding your footing in this new normal life, it takes some time, right? So let's talk to each other. Let's not just go through it alone.

Let's share what works and what doesn't work. All kinds of different things. So I'll tell you a little bit about me.

I got married when I was 21, and I got divorced when I was 41. Now, I definitely never planned on getting divorced. Like, that was like, no.

So to actually have to face that really rocked my world. I mean, it really did. I struggled because I swore that that's what I would never do, and then here I was.

And I had spent 20 years, half my life, all of my adult life with another individual who is now no longer there. I had two children and I thought I am totally responsible for them. Because of our arrangement, I had 100% full-time custody.

I had no one else to tag team with and say, okay, you're on duty tonight. You know, I just need a break. The responsibility felt overwhelming.

It was, I struggled emotionally, like I said, because I thought I would never get divorced. And I had to face what I said I would never do, right? And just the practical side of it, I did.

I threw a pity party. I'm not even going to lie. I wish that I would have handled it with more grace and more dignity, but I did not.

I was upset, and I think I would have wallowed in self-pity and just brokenheartedness. But I had those two kids, right? Two kids who were looking up to me, and I thought the only way to teach them resilience is to be resilient.

I have to show them. I have to lead by example, and that sucked. But it made me get up and dust myself off and start trying to figure out how to rebuild this life, because they were at the age they were watching me.

I think children at every age watch you. I don't know. Mine were middle school and high school, and I just knew they were watching me, and I could not just fall apart and be a mess.

Even though I did a little bit, I had to pull it together, and I had to step up and show them that even when things happen in life that we don't want to happen, we can make it work. We can handle hard things, right?

And I wanted my kids to learn that lesson. I did not want to be the one to teach them to do them, but that was how it was. So I said, okay, I'm going to do this.

Where do I start? I had no idea where to start, right? So I did.

I went to counseling. I highly recommend counseling. Finding somebody that you really click with and gel with is important, somebody to talk to, somebody to help speak in to your life and be able to give you an outside perspective.

I read a ton of self-help books, more self-help books than probably I ever should have. And I'll be happy to recommend the good ones. But some of them were just, I wanted to beat my head against the wall, like, no, do not tell me this.

I read self-help books. I went to something called Divorce Care. I don't know if you've heard of that, but churches and places offer it sometimes.

It's like a group study type thing. I did that. I was looking for answers everywhere.

I knew I had to rebuild my life, but like I said, I spent all of my adult life with another individual. Now that I was on my own, I was kind of like looking for direction, like where do I go? What do I do?

So I did all these things. I was looking for maybe a step-by-step guide. I was looking for whatever I was looking for.

I didn't find it all in one place. I'll tell you that. Nobody really has the answers, right?

I mean, we've got to find some of them on our own. But this is what I figured out. I distilled down from all the counseling and the self-help books and divorce care.

There were five areas that I needed to focus on. And if I was going to rebuild an amazing life, a life that I was proud of, a life that was stable and strong and not subject to falling over, then I needed to focus on these five things.

Because it felt like I had building blocks, you know, like kids have blocks, right? And I built this tower of an, I called it, life. And somebody came and just knocked it down.

And if I was going to have to rebuild that tower a second time, I was going to be thoughtful. I was going to be conscientious. I was going to lay a wide foundation.

I was going to just be super pragmatic about how I went rebuilding it. If I was going to rebuild it again, I wasn't going to build it the same way. And if I'm honest with you, the first half of my life very much just kind of happened, right?

It was go with the flow. I got married, life happened to me, and I just went with it. And nothing is wrong with that.

I think that's how a lot of us live life. But when it felt like everything fell apart and I had to put it back together, I thought, I'm going to be thoughtful about how I put it back together because I don't want it to fall apart again.

So I wanted to really just choose. I didn't want life to happen to me. I wanted to happen to it.

I wanted to set my sails. I wanted to direct my course. And that is a whole idea behind these five areas that I began to focus on.

I wanted to choose how I rebuilt my life. And I wanted to have elements in it that mattered. And I wanted to rebuild a foundation that wouldn't just crumble again on me, right?

So all of our future episodes will deal with one of those five focus areas, okay? So I'm going to tell you what the five focus areas are, go over them briefly, just so you have an idea of what we're going to be talking about.

So each of the future episodes will be a topic that fall under one of these five categories. So the first area that I chose to focus on as I'm rebuilding my life was my spiritual health. That sounds kind of odd, right?

I know. Bear with me. Spiritual health sounds so odd, and I get it.

But I believe there is some strong evidence that can back me up on how important this is. So do you ever have you do you know anyone who has gone through a 12-step program like Celebrate Recovery, AA, something like that?

12-step programs are known around the world for how invaluable they are in helping people transform their lives, right? And a key element to those 12-step programs is belief in a higher power.

In order to facilitate change in your life, belief in a higher power is what is required. Okay. And I didn't say that in a religious organization, didn't necessarily say that these 12-step programs all espouse that same tenet.

You have to have belief in higher power. Why is that? Why is that so important?

I believe that faith offers us resources that we don't have on our own. I personally am a strong believer in Jesus Christ, and without my faith, I would not be here today.

I have testimonies and stories that I could tell you, and maybe one day I will. God has tapped in the gap for me so many times. But if you are still a little bit leery of the idea of spiritual health and faith, faith offers you hope, right?

Because you have hope that tomorrow will be better, that somebody bigger than you is in control, that something beyond you could help affect positive change in your life. You have hope. Faith offers you strength.

There's strength that you know you are not alone. The strength that comes from just knowing that somebody bigger than you is looking out for you, right? Faith offers just deep well of resources.

It's amazing, right? I feel like what faith offers us is resilience. The way I kind of explain it is if you throw an egg against a wall, it's going to crack, right?

But if you had a rubber ball and you threw it against the wall, it's going to bounce. So faith offers you the elasticity to bounce, right? The resilience.

It's not that you're not going to hit the wall. You're going to hit the wall. It's not that it's not going to hurt.

That wall will hurt, but it won't break you. That's what faith offers you, that elasticity and resilience that you can't find really anywhere else. It's a unique, beautiful thing.

So working on your spiritual health is vital as you rebuild your life, like that strong foundation deep well inside of peace and hope and joy that you can't get anywhere else. It's so important.

And I understand that you could be struggling with your faith. A lot of times when you go through a hard time, it's easy to say, God, why did you let this happen? Some people were in church maybe, and they've walked away because of what happened.

That's okay. It's okay to be mad at God. It's okay to have walked away.

All those things are okay. But what's not okay is to stay there. So let's look at it.

Let's just take a good look and talk about all these different parts of our faith and how we can reconcile these things. Like, I grew up in a household that you were not supposed to get divorced. And it was a faith thing.

You didn't get divorced. And then I did. And I had to reconcile my belief in God with my divorce.

And I did that, but it took time. It wasn't like a light switch. I had to reconcile that with God.

And if you're in that place, it's okay. And let's talk about it and go to the scriptures and talk about how to reconcile whatever it is. It could be that you're angry that God let that happen.

It could be that I got divorced, and my faith told me I didn't need to get divorced. How do I reconcile that? It could be so many things.

Well, it was somebody in the church that hurt me. Okay, but there are so many churches out there. You don't have to go back to the one that hurt you.

You can go to a different one. There are so many options and so many things to talk about. And then once we kind of reconcile our faith and we get in a good place just between us and God, right?

Then we gotta start talking about what our faith requires of us a little bit in this season, because this season is hard.

And there are things that are required sometimes in a hard season that maybe aren't required in another season, and that feels a little unfair. But sometimes in a really difficult season, one of the things required is forgiveness.

And we're not gonna talk about that today, because that's a tough, tough one if you're walking in a dark season. But we've gotta talk about it, and it will be a future episode, because forgiveness is so important.

In recovering from this and rebuilding a life, that's gonna matter.

So just the whole process from beginning to end, whether it's reconciling your belief system with your faith, like I wasn't supposed to get divorced, but I did, or whether it's reconciling just yourself to God, or whether it's reconciling yourself

with a church, or whatever it is, I believe there are so many things, and wherever you are, it's okay. It's okay to be mad at church, and it's okay to be mad at God. Like I said, 100%.

But if we stay there, we're denying ourselves this deep will of resources, like hope. Hope is so invaluable, and strength, and joy, and peace. The list goes on.

So let's not deny ourselves this invaluable resource that faith offers. Let's talk about it. Let's sort it out.

Let's challenge each other to walk in a faith that is appropriate to our season. Let's live this out, because what we get as a result, the benefits we get far outweigh any amount of effort we put in.

So spiritual health is the first thing, because it's foundational. It will see you through. If you had nothing else and you just had this one, you would be doing good.

So in future episodes, when we talk about spiritual health, we'll find one of those topics and deal with that. The second area that I really focused on as I was rebuilding my life was my mental health, right?

So I know mental health is a buzzword right now, but I like that it is because it's bringing light to something that we didn't really talk about when I was growing up, and that's your emotions and your just, I'm in a funk, give me space.

So I will say I'm not a licensed counselor.

I recommend people going to a licensed counselor, but I would really like to talk about some tips and tricks, some things that I learned to just kind of fold in to my daily life and my daily routine that made a big difference.

I mean, really big difference. Simple things like gratitude. Gratitude is deceptively simple, but when practiced on a daily basis, makes the biggest difference in your life.

I can't wait to talk about gratitude with you. I am a big, big believer in gratitude. Really diving in and really taking a hold.

It really, really makes a difference. I also want to talk about daily affirmations, and I know that sounds hokey, so just roll with me on it. I thought, I can't just say I'm a millionaire and become a millionaire.

That's not what affirmations are. But it is rewiring the way your brain works, right? And the way you believe the world to be set up and the way you see yourself, you're just going to say positive things over yourself.

And even in that vein, when. We talk about how to do that, we need to talk about what to do when you're spiraling, right? Because when you're going through a dark season, some days are good, but some days are bad, right?

I mean, let's just be real. And some days you can feel yourself spiraling, right? So what do we do in that moment or in those times?

How do we help ourselves? I mean, not just go all the way to the bottom. How do we kind of help ourself doggy paddle and keep our nose above the water when it just feels like, boof, the emotions are just wave after wave after wave?

What works? What helps? So there are things that I've done to shift my perspective to help me change my outlook.

I think working on our mental health matters because who we are on the inside and how we feel about ourself is just really, really important to a whole healthy, amazing life.

And so spiritual health is important, and then mental health, because that's your relationship almost with yourself, right?

And how you handle when things are said or done and spoken to you, and when you're offended or when somebody is rude, and when you're going through a bad time, it feels like everybody is way ruder than they were two years ago when you weren't going

through a bad time. I never used my car horn. I mean, I'm serious. My kids were little, and they would be like, Mom, why don't you honk the horn?

Like, if somebody would cut me off in traffic, and I'd like say something like, Uh-uh, what are you doing? They're like, use your horn. Never used my horn.

Went through my divorce, so angry, I used my horn all the time. I used my horn so much, in fact, that it stopped working. Like, literally the fuse blew.

And I said I was in horn timeout because I had used it way too much. Because it wasn't that suddenly there were more bad drivers on the road. No, it was my state of mind, right?

I was just so prickly. Everything that happened upset me, bothered me, made me mad, because I was just already angry. And I was already hurt, and I was already sad.

So it didn't take much to make me just feel like, blah. So working on our mental health and helping ourselves calm down, it doesn't change that you're in a dark night of the soul, right? It doesn't change that you're in a crappy place.

It's just helping bolster you. If you're in an ocean right now, it's just going to help you doggy paddle till you get to the other side. Okay?

So we're going to talk about things like what type of content are you consuming? What kind of music are you listening to? Shows you watch?

People you follow on social media? Like, what food you consume? What sets the mood in your house?

And how can we change that? Do you know clutter causes anxiety? So I'm not saying you need to be a neat freak, but a lot of times when you're kind of going through a dark season and you're down, it's really easy to let things pile up.

But that's the time we need to make sure they don't pile up maybe even more, because that clutter just kind of, it can start stacking and building, and it really does. I read an article, scientific proof, that clutter really does lead to anxiety.

So all these mental health things, little things, if we talk about 10 different things, and you only find one that you can incorporate into your daily life and it makes a difference, then it was worth it, right? Just what works for you.

Everybody's different. Not everything will be your thing. But let's keep on talking until we find something that works for you, because it matters.

Mental health matters, and talking about it matters, and not just kind of powering through, right? But talking about it and supporting each other in good mental health and healthy boundaries and things like that.

So that was the second area I focused on. The third area I focused on was my physical health. And this encompasses more than it sounds like.

So yes, diet and exercise. I believe if you eat right and you exercise and you move, it affects your mood, your mental health. I believe that's important.

I believe those things matter. But also physical appearance. So if you've been in a relationship for a long time, it's really easy to get into a rut.

Like I had the same clothes I wore all the time. I did my makeup the same, my hair the same, whatever. And so I got divorced, and I started experimenting with new styles and new things.

And let's update my look a little bit. Nothing like drastic, but trying new things. And the point of this whole section, physical health, isn't to me a certain standard of beauty.

I feel like there's so many standards of beauty out there. But all women are beautiful. It's taking your beauty and making it shine, right?

So have you ever, do you have like a favorite blouse or dress? And you put it on, and you just stand a little taller, right? You look at yourself in the mirror, and you kind of smile.

That's what we want to go for. I want you to be proud of you. There's not an amount of weight you need to lose.

There's not a certain look we're trying to achieve. It's just changing it up enough that you look in the mirror, and you're proud of yourself, that you like the way you look, that you feel good about yourself. That's the whole point of this.

So we'll talk about everything from, like I said, diet. I lost about 40 pounds, because I ate my way through my divorce. I ate all my feelings, and I had a lot of them.

So I needed to lose weight, and I lost about 40 pounds. So we can talk about different things, like what worked for you, what type of diet. There's so many diets out there.

I'm not a big fan of diets, but sometimes just to give you the boost to kind of drop the weight and then just work on a healthy, overall healthy diet. But like what worked for you? Did you go to the gym?

Did you like start walking on your lunch break, intermittent fasting, all those kinds of things? Like I would love to talk about that. And then I would like to talk about like the physical appearance stuff.

So like hairstyles, what hairstyles look good on like face shapes, different makeup, definitely clothes. And then I want to get into things too like, okay, I'm middle-aged, I got divorced at 41.

So we're starting to talk about changes happening like menopause.

And so suddenly my hormones kind of start shifting, and my hair got dry, and I'm starting to see more wrinkles in my skin, and just the way my skin hangs, it just really started up, set me. So what kind of moisturizers do you use?

Have you tried dry brushing? What kind of supplements do you use? Are there supplements that have naturally balanced out your hormones?

I found a supplement that I really like. I've tried a million supplements. It feels like if I think it might naturally help, I try it.

But I found one that now I will use that one from now on. But let's just talk about the different things.

Not only are we going through this big life change of, now we no longer have the partner we had for so long, but we're also going through a physical change in our body in middle age. And it felt like my body was betraying me a little bit.

Like, wait a minute, stop. So let's just talk about all those different things, like how we can update our looks so we feel good about ourselves. And I absolutely can just be a little bit of a junkie when it comes to creams and different makeups.

And I find it fascinating. I am not by any means a beauty guru. I am not whatever.

I just find it fascinating. I love it. I like to try all the samples.

And so anyhow, let's talk about it. Let's talk about what we can do to, at the end of the day, when it's all said and done, we feel good about ourselves.

Whether that's a wrinkle cream so you don't feel like your skin is whatever, or a new blouse, what clothes look good on what body type, all that kind of stuff. So you smile at yourself in the mirror.

So you stand a little taller, because when you feel good about how you look, that projects. It projects in amazing ways, and there is no substitute for it at all. It is an inner thing, and that's the goal.

I want you to feel good about yourself. And I remember going through the process.

At first, I was just down, but as I tried new things and I started to go, ooh, well, I kind of like that, and I realized slowly, I started to feel good about myself again. I started to like the way that I looked.

Whatever that is, we're all different. We've got different shapes and sizes. It matters that you feel good about you in a realistic and healthy way.

So I want to talk about that and just get to where you project that good, I feel good about me, self-confidence to the world, because that changes your interactions with people. It will affect so much more of your life than you realize.

When you project that just down deep kind of confidence, like I like who I am and the way I look, it changes things. It really does. I mean, it's not like you could go to the bank and get a loan for a million dollars, but it is noticeable.

You totally can tell the difference when somebody feels good about the way they look, and I just feel like it matters. And I want you to feel good about the way you look, because you are beautiful. I know that.

I know that, even though I cannot see you, I know that. And let's talk about ways so that you can find the things that help make you feel beautiful, because you are. And it's so important that you know that and you carry that.

And sometimes I feel like our self-confidence and our physical appearance has gotten damaged because of maybe a breakup. Mine got crushed. I mean, just decimated.

And building that back up took time, but it was really important to do. It was so important to not have my value of how I look based on another person's opinion, but it came from inside. It came from me, like, hey, I am happy with who I am.

So let's find a way for you to be happy with who you are. And it might take time. It could take a lot of little bitty things, like now I'm using this cream, or I've updated the way I apply my eye makeup.

I found a couple new. I realized this color looks better on my skin tone, whatever it is. A few different things, and then suddenly you're smiling at yourself in the mirror again.

And that's what we want. That is what's worth it. So number three is physical health, which just encompasses all the physical appearance health the whole nine years.

So I focused on that. The third, fourth thing, we're on number four, the fourth thing I focused on was my financial health. Right?

We don't talk about finances, but we got to. A lot of times, divorce just really messes your finances up so bad. So we have to talk about it.

You don't live a day that finances don't affect you, that you don't spend money, make money, need money, buy something, consume something that was bought with money. Money affects you day in and day out, and we don't talk about it enough.

And we, as women, have to talk about it. So many times, it's the man who's in charge of the finances, and we've got to learn how to win with money. And when I got in charge of my finances again, I looked up my credit score.

It was in the tank. It was so bad. And I've been working consistently.

I've gotten it up about 750, and there's just some things that are still waiting to fall off that happened when I was still married. And it just takes seven years for them to fall off those delinquencies that happened that I didn't even know about.

But my name was attached to it, so it just takes time when those fall off. I know my credit score will go all the way up back into the 800s, which is where it was years and years ago. But my divorce and, you know, whatever.

Once I was in control of my finances, it was hard, but it was also really cool because then I could run it the way I wanted to, and I could save the money I wanted to save, and I could set a budget, and I just went to town.

And it took time, but I was diligent about saving money. I was diligent about sticking to a budget. And I am so proud to say I am debt free.

I owned my house outright. I owned my vehicles, which was my car, and then my daughter had to get a car because she got, she needed a car to drive. All of it.

No car payment, no mortgage. I owned them outright. That was such an amazing victory for me, especially as a single mom.

And now it wasn't a nice house mansion. It was a 1950s starter home. It was a simple house.

I stayed within a budget. I bought what I could afford. My cars that were paid off were not amazing, great, top of the line, brand new cars.

I got what I could afford. I was so proud to be debt free. I was so proud to be debt free.

And then I started, you know, I had money in savings, and I kept kicking it back, kicking it back. And then I got to this place in my life where I didn't have to worry. I didn't live paycheck to paycheck.

I didn't stress. If my company got bought, and I lost my job, that would suck, but I would have the money to pay my bills. And it affects your mental health when you don't live paycheck to paycheck.

I'm going to tell you that right now. It is so stressful living paycheck to paycheck. And the only way to stop it is to get really focused and honest and deal with it.

And it is a topic that we ignore consistently in America. It feels like everybody just ignores it and puts it on a card and spends money and goes to the next thing. We've got to talk about money.

It's vital. We've got to talk about what your retirement is going to look like now, that you don't have your person anymore. It's just you.

What does retirement look like? Let's talk about that. What does your housing situation look like?

We sold a home as a result of our divorce, and I bought a home as a result of our divorce. So, do you have a home sale or home purchase in your future? Let's talk about that.

Let's talk about buying or selling a car. I mean, I bought a car for my child. I had never gone through that process before.

I was really happy to get her a car, but let's talk about all these things with money. How you handle it, how you deal with it, how to save it, where to cut cost, where to allow yourself maybe extras.

I'm not all about this diet, that starvation where you can't have a little bit. You've got to give yourself some cushion. But if we don't talk about it, if we don't take this bull by the horns and tame it, it will tame us.

I don't want your money to be in charge of you. I want you to be in charge of your money. It's like if I say, hey, do you want to go out to eat?

And you say, well, let me look at my bank account. I don't know how much money I have. That's your money telling you what you can and can't do.

If it's beginning of the month, you sit down and you say, okay, I'm going to spend this much money on going out to eat. I'm going to spend this much money on this. And you categorize it out.

And somebody says, do you want to go out to eat? And you're like, of course I do. I actually have money set aside for that.

That's you telling your money what to do. There's a difference. And just taking control is hard because it feels intimidating.

I don't feel like... I mean, there's some people that talk about it, but we don't really talk about the nuts and bolts of it enough. And like I said, it affects you every day of your life.

There is really not a day that you're not consuming something you bought, buying something, like I said, going to work and making money. It affects us day in and day out. And something so big and so important, we've got to stop ignoring.

And we've got to sit down and tackle it. And I'm willing to do that with you. I feel like I really handled this one, and I just was really excited and proud of what I was able to accomplish.

And if I can do it, I know you can do it. So we're going to talk about it and just take it piece by piece, okay? So number four was financial health.

So, so far, we've covered spiritual health, mental health, physical health, financial health, rebuilding a life. The last one is going to be kind of a catch-all, and it's just growth and goals.

So as we're rebuilding a life, and so spiritually, internally, externally, financially, we're building all those blocks, right? But we've got to be building towards something, right?

Having a goal and a vision in front of you really helps keep you motivated in that forward progress. So let's talk about, do you want a new career goal? Do you want a whole new job?

Do you just want to move up in your job? Let's talk about your career and what steps to take. Do you need to get a new license?

Do you need to go back to school? What are your goals for your career? Do you want to start a side hustle?

There's so many side hustles right now. It is such a vast number of options, but let's talk about them. Let's talk about your personal goals.

Let's talk about, like, what you want to do. And sometimes when you've been in a relationship and it ends, there were things that you liked to do before that relationship started. They just kind of fell by the wayside.

Maybe they didn't fold into your relationship well. Maybe your partner didn't really like those things so much. Whatever.

Let's rediscover those things. Did you like to bake? Do you like to paint?

What's your thing? Do you like to garden? Do you like to write?

What are the personal things that just make you feel good and alive? Like, let's start doing those more, and let's talk about those and write those down. And then things, what have you always wanted to do?

I always wanted to learn to scuba dive, and I did. So let's research the things you've always wanted to do and figure out what steps it takes to do them. Like scuba diving, for me, where I am, where I live, I needed to take a bunch of courses online.

It was like all divided up, and there was a test after each unit, and then there was the big test. Okay, so I did that.

And then I had to go to a facility here that has a pool, and they put the tank and all the equipment on you, and you practice like the underwater stuff and buoyancy. So that was a couple days, and that was another part.

And then I had to take a trip to the ocean, because I don't live near the beach, and we did an open water dive, and that was a couple days, and then I was certified as a scuba diver. So yay, but there were steps involved.

So is there something you want to do, and there may be steps involved. You can't just go do it, but instead of it just being a pipe dream, let's put legs on it. Let's give it a foundation.

Like what's step one? Well, let's look up what it costs and what it takes to do it. Things like that.

Let's talk about all these things. Growth and goals. I'd catch all, but how do you make new friends?

Like when you were a couple, you may have had couple friends, you may have let some of your relationships and friendships wither, because you were focused on your partner. Now that you're an adult, how do you make new friends?

Where are these people at, and where do you meet them? So that and then, and you might not be ready for this, but like online dating, like the last time I dated, we didn't even have smartphones. So there was not an app for that.

It was just friends hanging out. I was in college. You know, it was totally different.

I was in my mid-40s. There was no male that I worked with that I was going to date. How was I going to meet somebody new?

I mean, I went from work to home with my kids, you know. Like, I was running in this very narrow tunnel. And it was like, how am I going to meet somebody outside of this thing?

So yeah, I did. I tried online dating. Let's talk about it.

Like, what you put on your profile, what you not, what pictures, how do you look out for scams? I went into it blind. I don't want you to go into it blind.

You may know more about it than me and chime in and give us all kinds of feedback. I'll tell you what I learned. But let's just talk about all those things.

So maybe under Growth and Goals, your goal is eventually, when I'm ready, I want another relationship. And that's how I was. I didn't, I just know my personality.

I wasn't geared to be alone. Some people, they're like, you know what? I just, I want to be alone from now.

And that's okay, too. Both are completely respectable options. But let's talk about all the different things.

So our career goals and making money, right? That's important. Personal goals, things that set our heart on fire and make us happy and build that passion inside of us.

Like all those types of things, let's talk about them and just kind of keep ourselves motivated. And with a thing in front of us, like a goal, like, okay, this is what I want to do. That is just a good thing.

I think no matter where you are in life, whatever stage you are, is to have a goal in front of you, something you're working towards. Even if it's like, I want to learn how to bake this type of bread. I want to learn whatever it is.

It doesn't really matter what it is. It just matters that you have some goals and that you're working toward them, and that they truly make you happy. They're truly things you want.

And in a mixture of simple, easily obtainable goals, and a mixture of long-term goals that might take a little bit more work. So we're going to talk about all those things, and how to do that, and set different things up.

I am so excited to go on this journey with you. I am so excited. I don't have all the answers, but I am willing to share with you the things that worked for me, and I'm willing to help find the answers.

And I know as we build a community, other people are going to chime in, and they're going to share what worked for them, and we are going to do this together. I truly believe that you are not alone. Thank you for tuning in.

Thank you for joining me. And let's work on building an amazing life together. I'll see you next time.

Bye.