Speaker 1: Hey, everybody on Brooke Burke, and you might be wondering
Speaker 1: why you're hearing my voice and not the usual duo.
Speaker 1: I'm really happy to be joining you and I don't know,
Speaker 1: I guess we just addressed the elephant in the room,
Speaker 1: you know, right off the top. I have been following,
Speaker 1: you know, the latest news with with Janna and Michael
Speaker 1: and um. You know, as a woman, I want to
Speaker 1: say that I have been through two very public divorces.
Speaker 1: It is hard, um, and I'm here just filling in
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, right now, I feel like a pause,
Speaker 1: a moment that they're giving themselves for whatever reason that
Speaker 1: might not be our business yet um is real and
Speaker 1: valid and super duper important. So I'm just here to
Speaker 1: dish and chat. And we have an amazing guest joining
Speaker 1: us today, which I'm very grateful for, Hillary Goldscher, And
Speaker 1: she's a clinical psychologist. She specializes in couples and relationship therapy.
Speaker 1: So um, she's going to be our expert. I've so
Speaker 1: many things to ask her, and it's so nice to
Speaker 1: have someone like her to bounce things off of because
Speaker 1: I'm not an expert. I've been through this, but I'm
Speaker 1: still learning and I also want to just reiterate that
Speaker 1: these are all possibilities, Like, no one knows what somebody
Speaker 1: else is going through, and it's really easy for all
Speaker 1: of us to assume and and um, you know, to
Speaker 1: talk about Janet Mike, but honestly, uh, nobody has any
Speaker 1: idea of what goes on in the privacy of people's home.
Speaker 1: So give them grace. And I'm really happy that Hillary
Speaker 1: is here because I just want to keep it real
Speaker 1: and hopefully we can all learn and um and grow
Speaker 1: a little bit. Today. Well, I'm here too, it's Mark
Speaker 1: and Um. I was stunned, of course when I heard
Speaker 1: the news. And people will say, how, how can you
Speaker 1: be stunned? It's been years of a podcast with these
Speaker 1: two arguing, bickering, struggling through their relationship. But I really
Speaker 1: thought they had turned a corner. I really thought that um,
Speaker 1: Michael had reached a point in his therapy that he
Speaker 1: was asked what he's being said to have done in
Speaker 1: the press. And I don't know what he's done, and
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't want to assume anything, but
Speaker 1: there's a lot out there about infidelity on his part.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's happened again or not, but
Speaker 1: if it has happened again, that's what I'm completely shocked about.
Speaker 1: Just knowing him over the past few years, I really
Speaker 1: felt he wanted desperately to put that part of his
Speaker 1: life behind him. Yeah, you know, it's yeah, I can't,
Speaker 1: you know, one of those cheesy quotes, But I swear
Speaker 1: it's so true that everybody else's opinion is really none
Speaker 1: of our business. I mean, it's sort of like the mystery,
Speaker 1: you know, having gone through two marriages, for children, two divorces, um,
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes we just don't get to be who
Speaker 1: we hope to be in a relationship. And one of
Speaker 1: the turning points for me um in my most recent
Speaker 1: divorce to David, and I feel really comfortable today saying
Speaker 1: that I had a chance to marry the love of
Speaker 1: my life, like we had a mad love affair, connects
Speaker 1: and chemistry, two beautiful children, like conceived from love and
Speaker 1: raised in that same vein. And you know, it was
Speaker 1: devastating to feel in moments that I failed. And my
Speaker 1: turning point was when I realized that I wasn't giving
Speaker 1: up and I didn't fail. It was just time to
Speaker 1: let go, and it was time to sort of meet
Speaker 1: my relationship that was hard with um, honesty and a
Speaker 1: bit of a surrender, if that makes sense. And um,
Speaker 1: you know, I have a podcast called Intimate Knowledge, and
Speaker 1: we sort of broke it down when I was very
Speaker 1: raw and vulnerable. And you know, sometimes those are the
Speaker 1: greatest times to bring light to this challenge because I
Speaker 1: struggled in the letting go of the fairy tale that
Speaker 1: I wanted and letting go of who we were trying
Speaker 1: to be in Yeah, therapy and yeah kids and all
Speaker 1: this stuff worth fighting for and the moment in time
Speaker 1: and by the way, we worked on it for years
Speaker 1: before we had our our our, our transition into change.
Speaker 1: And you know that's the way everybody calls it something
Speaker 1: fabulous publicly, right, I mean you remember all the criticism,
Speaker 1: you know, with so many people in the press. Um,
Speaker 1: But for me, it was like it was time for
Speaker 1: change and I had to own that and that was
Speaker 1: freaking hard. You know. I was reading, um, you know,
Speaker 1: Janna's post last week and um, it was right before
Speaker 1: I agreed to to co host today and to come
Speaker 1: in and fill in, and you know, as a woman,
Speaker 1: I was like, girl, absolutely take your time, take your moment,
Speaker 1: and it deserves no explanation, but I also read it
Speaker 1: and it brought me back to that time in my
Speaker 1: life several years ago when I was like, Okay, I've
Speaker 1: shared my life publicly with everyone. I've opened everything up,
Speaker 1: I've committed to be honest, and now do I really
Speaker 1: have to talk about it? What do I say? What
Speaker 1: do I not say? How do I protict my family?
Speaker 1: Is it time right now? What does that look like?
Speaker 1: Is it cheesy to do it? And it's like, what
Speaker 1: the hell do you say? What's my like one paragraph statement?
Speaker 1: And reading her post that I thought was so beautifully put, um, honest, painful, vulnerable,
Speaker 1: all the things that it that it um needed to
Speaker 1: be for her, and I just I really feel for
Speaker 1: for the you know, the family, the couple, and um,
Speaker 1: there's no right or wrong way to do it right,
Speaker 1: there's no right or wrong way to stay married, there's
Speaker 1: no right or wrong way to separate, and you know,
Speaker 1: I just I hope that everybody you know listening gives
Speaker 1: them grace and the support publicly is so amazing. And
Speaker 1: then there's also like this desperate need I think is
Speaker 1: a public person for a moment of privacy and to
Speaker 1: have freedom to become unraveled and to be upset and
Speaker 1: to feel like crawling into a hole or a ball
Speaker 1: or whatever you need to do. Is it human being?
Speaker 1: It's not just a woman to woman, it's the whole family.
Speaker 1: So I I just to say that, and um, you know,
Speaker 1: we can guess all we want, right And and it's hard,
Speaker 1: it's really really hard, and anyone's going through well, you're
Speaker 1: mentioning that element is not something I can relate to.
Speaker 1: A lot of of people get divorced. They tell their
Speaker 1: family and friends and it sucks and it's hard. But
Speaker 1: the fact that you and Jana have to make a
Speaker 1: public announcement to the world and you have to craft
Speaker 1: a statement and all that stuff, that's got to be
Speaker 1: a whole other added level of stress and headache. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and even when you're bleeding, you know, and there's gunfire
Speaker 1: going off in your head and you don't really even
Speaker 1: know what to say and you're just trying to survive it. Um,
Speaker 1: And so many people do it and try to be
Speaker 1: super strong. And you know, as a woman, I've found
Speaker 1: it to be extremely valuable to give yourself that room
Speaker 1: to feel whatever you need to feel, anger, resenting, pain,
Speaker 1: letting go joy, whatever it is. Um. From the outside
Speaker 1: looking in, nobody really knows what two people are going
Speaker 1: through and why and when when the right time is UM.
Speaker 1: But it's hard. That transition is really really hard. So
Speaker 1: fortunately we have Hillary joining us today. She's going to
Speaker 1: give us some professional insight. And I just want to
Speaker 1: say quickly that all the stuff that we're talking about today,
Speaker 1: these are just possibilities. And I want to like take
Speaker 1: ownership in that that people get it right, they get
Speaker 1: it wrong, and people that are going through similar things
Speaker 1: that I've been through, that jan is going through, that
Speaker 1: her family is going through, these are just possibilities to
Speaker 1: consider um and rolling through that change. So um, yeah,
Speaker 1: let's let's get her in here. Hey, how you doing. Hi,
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us, Thanks for having me. We're happy
Speaker 1: that you're here and trying to do this very delicate
Speaker 1: dance of talking about life, love, divorce, change, transition, curious
Speaker 1: what you might call it, doctor, all of that right?
Speaker 1: For sure, like a grief filled episode of time. For sure,
Speaker 1: that's the biggest word that comes to my mind, you know,
Speaker 1: with those kind of changes, in that kind of loss. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: I mean to tell everybody that's listening just a little
Speaker 1: bit about you, what you do, what your specialty is.
Speaker 1: I'm happy that you are. Um, you know, the queen
Speaker 1: of couples in relationship therapy, which is awesome because everybody
Speaker 1: needs as much advice in that area. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: and let's let's just see if we can give them
Speaker 1: some good positive takeaways. Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm
Speaker 1: Dr Hillary Culture. I'm a licensed clinical psychologist and normally
Speaker 1: at this point, I say, in Beverly Hills, but now
Speaker 1: operating out of my home office in another location in
Speaker 1: Gae right, but my specialties include of course couples and
Speaker 1: parenting as well as trauma and depression and anxiety. So
Speaker 1: this is right at my alley and um, yeah, so
Speaker 1: glad we're able to have this discussion in such like
Speaker 1: a timely, real life moment, even though it's so tricky,
Speaker 1: and you know it is tricky and I've been through
Speaker 1: it twice. We were just talking about that a little
Speaker 1: bit and just you know, honesty, vulnerability, I think, freedom
Speaker 1: for couples to do whatever you need to do in
Speaker 1: this process. And you know, the tricky part two is
Speaker 1: being public and you know, even today having a conversation
Speaker 1: you know, without them about them. Um. You know, I
Speaker 1: kind of want to keep it personal and and keep
Speaker 1: it relevant for other people who are struggling as well,
Speaker 1: because you know, two of my divorces were completely different. Um,
Speaker 1: both traumatic, both super painful. I have four children too,
Speaker 1: and too um. You know, there's moments of feeling like
Speaker 1: you failed. There's moments of allowing yourself freedom to change
Speaker 1: and grow, and there's just like a whole rainbow of emotions.
Speaker 1: And then publicly and trying to have game face on
Speaker 1: as a woman and trying to be a mom and
Speaker 1: showing up and going to work and finding the right
Speaker 1: narrative to tell people who care about you. Um, Like
Speaker 1: that's a whole another level of coping with separation, divorce.
Speaker 1: I mean, are we using the d work today? I
Speaker 1: mean that seems like even like there's baby steps right
Speaker 1: to getting to that place, so many things to unpack it.
Speaker 1: You made me think of two really important things, which
Speaker 1: is like just validating the mess of it, Validating how
Speaker 1: hard this is, validating how grief filled it is, how
Speaker 1: anxiety provoking it is, how depressing it is, how upsetting
Speaker 1: it is, whether you're in the public eye or not.
Speaker 1: And I think we all could agree that having this
Speaker 1: kind of split in the public eye as a whole
Speaker 1: other component, but just how difficult it is in validating
Speaker 1: that and making it normal even though this experience is
Speaker 1: sort of awful and abnormal in a certain way, anyone
Speaker 1: going through this knows that you visit these stages of
Speaker 1: upset and these stages of devastation and letting that sort
Speaker 1: of be okay. I think it's a really important message.
Speaker 1: No one is going to feel okay in the situation
Speaker 1: that Um JENNI finds herself in, or in a situation
Speaker 1: of any breakup, especially with kids. Yeah. Sure. And you
Speaker 1: also reminded me of something that I wanted to talk
Speaker 1: about as I was thinking about getting together with you today,
Speaker 1: which is that I feel like every marriage or partnership,
Speaker 1: if it ends, has its own sort of afterlife, has
Speaker 1: its own specific grief filled story and has its own
Speaker 1: journey of recovery. They're both different, almost build like a
Speaker 1: new relationship with the partner that you're splitting with, even
Speaker 1: if it's just in your mind, um, dealing with resentment,
Speaker 1: dealing with anger, dealing with the feeling of loss, dealing
Speaker 1: with co parenting, if that's on a table on the table,
Speaker 1: it's like a whole new relationship with that person has
Speaker 1: to be formed while you grieve the loss of the
Speaker 1: relationship you thought you had. Yes, you made me think
Speaker 1: of something in my first divorce. Um, both of them
Speaker 1: were really necessary. So I'm just going to speak about
Speaker 1: myself because that feels more appropriate. Um. And I remember
Speaker 1: someone giving me a book called a Working Divorce. I
Speaker 1: think that was the title. We should look it up.
Speaker 1: And it was really instrumental because my goal was to
Speaker 1: have a better relationship as exs than we had married,
Speaker 1: which is not easy, and it's not easy with children,
Speaker 1: and it's not easy depending on your partner's personality. Like
Speaker 1: my ultimate goal in life and was sort of to
Speaker 1: take the high road. Okay, lucky him, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. And we're not always met, you know, with
Speaker 1: with with that, you know, same type of intention, but
Speaker 1: figuring out ways to shift into a new way of communicating,
Speaker 1: new boundaries, new respect even. Um. So there were there
Speaker 1: were a lot of things that I did, obviously therapy,
Speaker 1: but there were some really instrumental books that I read
Speaker 1: as well that helped me get really clear kind of
Speaker 1: on the story in my mind. Um, you know, there's
Speaker 1: always several parts to everything in the truth lies in
Speaker 1: the middle, and there's someone else's evaluation whatever. And I
Speaker 1: think when you're in trauma, and I'd love to hear
Speaker 1: your your ear sense on this. When you're in trauma
Speaker 1: where you're going through a painful shift in your life,
Speaker 1: sometimes we don't really see it for what it is. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, and my and my second divorce it was
Speaker 1: even harder because um, we had a very deep love.
Speaker 1: I was really fighting for the success of that love
Speaker 1: because I had already been divorced once and I already
Speaker 1: felt unsuccessful in marriage. I try not to use the
Speaker 1: word failure anymore. I already felt like I broke two
Speaker 1: little girl's hearts, and I was like, I'll be damned
Speaker 1: if I'm going to do that again. So I was
Speaker 1: fighting the good fight for myself, from my children, from
Speaker 1: my husband, from my own commitment to myself and my
Speaker 1: own sort of commitment to like, I'm a big girl
Speaker 1: now and I should know better, and I already this
Speaker 1: up once, and I am going to fight for this
Speaker 1: for all the right reasons and all the reasons worth
Speaker 1: fighting for. And there was it was the time when
Speaker 1: sort of together we realized that we weren't celebrating each
Speaker 1: other anymore, and we weren't being great examples for our
Speaker 1: little children, and we weren't loving each other the way
Speaker 1: that we both hoped and wanted and deserved to be loved.
Speaker 1: And we kind of leaned into that decision together. Um,
Speaker 1: but you made me, made me think of something, and
Speaker 1: I want to just bring a very real nous to this.
Speaker 1: There were times, even though what I'm saying sounds really
Speaker 1: beautiful and mature, when we hated each other where it
Speaker 1: was freaking toxic on the sports field, I mean, like
Speaker 1: painful to show up from my son at soccer, And
Speaker 1: there were times when we cried in each other's arms.
Speaker 1: There were times where we were able to connect that
Speaker 1: it gives me goose bumps and makes me emotional, but
Speaker 1: times where I needed him to let go. I kind
Speaker 1: of needed to meet him and love to let go
Speaker 1: and transition, and times when I couldn't stand the sight
Speaker 1: or smell of him or his energy. So you go
Speaker 1: through all kinds of things and then everybody gives you
Speaker 1: advice and everybody tells you how to do it, And
Speaker 1: I just think people need to give themselves grace to
Speaker 1: feel whatever the hell they're feeling when they're feeling it.
Speaker 1: Like you said, there's no appropriate timeline and you've got
Speaker 1: to roll through that as a human being without expectations,
Speaker 1: like your own journey of healing. Do you agree with that? Like, yes,
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you exposed both sides, right, because those
Speaker 1: things can coexist. They do exist, right. There can be
Speaker 1: these moments of like peace and connection and understanding and
Speaker 1: like hope for the future, and then these moments of
Speaker 1: total trauma, total devastation, total toxic toxicity, and most people
Speaker 1: and divorces experience both and saying it out loud is
Speaker 1: going to be healing for people listening. That's normal if
Speaker 1: you're visiting both sides. And I couldn't say it before
Speaker 1: because I didn't understand it before. I didn't understand or
Speaker 1: have faith that it was going to be okay when
Speaker 1: I was in it. When you're in it, you can't
Speaker 1: You usually can't see it, and I had to that
Speaker 1: were so different. One was awful, the other one was
Speaker 1: awful too. But the learning lessons and possibilities and um,
Speaker 1: the things I did wrong the first time, I think
Speaker 1: really helped me to step up the second time. And
Speaker 1: I was bleeding inside like heart broken, like there's no
Speaker 1: shame to my vulnerability, and that I wanted to stay married.
Speaker 1: I had like a deep love and maybe I wasn't
Speaker 1: great at it. Recognizing that the marriage just kind of
Speaker 1: sucked was heartbreaking. Um, recognizing my faults, recognizing him faults,
Speaker 1: but just having that sort of come to Jesus moment
Speaker 1: where I was like, it's time now, like I did
Speaker 1: everything we like, it's time, and getting to that point
Speaker 1: of letting go and saying like it's time for us
Speaker 1: to get a divorce, like like like you could die,
Speaker 1: like you feel like you're going to die, Like you
Speaker 1: can't breathe, like you physically can't breathe. Those two notes
Speaker 1: are almost entire honerable. Right. The truth of like loving
Speaker 1: someone so deeply and at the very same time knowing
Speaker 1: that it's unsafe or unhealthy to stay together, it's almost otherworldly.
Speaker 1: The pain that that creates in two people, right, and
Speaker 1: coming to that decision, devastating decision that you can't be
Speaker 1: together and be safe and healthy is, as you alluded to,
Speaker 1: is traumatic and traumatic traumatic, and so a key how
Speaker 1: about like how could we not be who we thought
Speaker 1: we were? Like when you look at someone and go,
Speaker 1: You're not who I thought you were. But maybe they are,
Speaker 1: and maybe I thought you were someone else, or maybe
Speaker 1: this relationship that we've been fighting for and holding onto
Speaker 1: it's never gonna be what I dreamed it would be.
Speaker 1: I think that was the hardest part, was the real
Speaker 1: the reality of it is what it is like I
Speaker 1: am looking like okay, and I think I've learned. I
Speaker 1: think I've learned this. This This is a hard conversation everybody,
Speaker 1: because I'm talking to a professional. Sometimes we're in our
Speaker 1: head and we think we know what we know and
Speaker 1: we don't know about what we don't know. Um, the
Speaker 1: reality of accepting the facts, like for example, I'll give
Speaker 1: you an example. I don't think I've ever talked about this,
Speaker 1: but whatever, we all grow up. We all grow up
Speaker 1: from our reality. I remember when when I went to
Speaker 1: New York and I came home and he had moved out,
Speaker 1: and yet he kept talking about how he wanted to
Speaker 1: work on it and you didn't want to divorce, and
Speaker 1: and I could have taken then in and be like,
Speaker 1: he really doesn't want to divorce me, do it? You
Speaker 1: moved out? Fact be told I went to New York,
Speaker 1: I came home you packed up and you moved out.
Speaker 1: I had to learn how to just take facts for reality,
Speaker 1: and that's really hard to do, Like when you're in
Speaker 1: your roller coaster of emotions in pain, right, like, yes,
Speaker 1: you're talking, someone's doing wrong. Thing was like, just the
Speaker 1: facts are that we and we look we may were
Speaker 1: women like we make excuses, we put our war pain on.
Speaker 1: We're super brave. We'll fight the fight. We can take it.
Speaker 1: We can take a lot. Men to mento like this
Speaker 1: isn't anybody's like fault. We don't. You know, everybody has
Speaker 1: their role in it. But it's hard to get real, right,
Speaker 1: I think you're talking about and this word was coming
Speaker 1: up as you were describing your sort of personal stories,
Speaker 1: like disorientation. Right, you're looking through one lens for so long,
Speaker 1: this lens of you and him and seeing yourself a
Speaker 1: certain way, seeing him a certain way, seeing your life
Speaker 1: a certain way, and it's totally disorienting when it starts
Speaker 1: to crumble. And so we may fill in the blanks
Speaker 1: another way, right, that doesn't include the truth, That doesn't
Speaker 1: include the facts. We can't take them in. We can't
Speaker 1: absorb it because it's too disorienting, it's too traumatic and again,
Speaker 1: even though in retrospect we might beat ourselves up or
Speaker 1: think like how could I have missed that? Or how
Speaker 1: could I have tolerated it? But I don't think those
Speaker 1: are the right questions to ask. The sort of the
Speaker 1: way to look at it is is your depth of love,
Speaker 1: your willingness to sort of persevere, or your ability to
Speaker 1: have faith in people, and then your ability to also
Speaker 1: recognize a truth when your heart and soul and mind
Speaker 1: are ready for it, right, and that happens for different
Speaker 1: people at different times, And circling back to something we
Speaker 1: said at the beginning, there's no manual, there's no judgment
Speaker 1: that should be ascribed to when that happens for people.
Speaker 1: It happens at different times for different reasons, based on
Speaker 1: the individuals involved, and we want to honor that journey
Speaker 1: for someone, not judge it or success it or try
Speaker 1: to impram it. I am all in that I am
Speaker 1: all in with Scott Patterson and I Hurt Radio podcast.
Speaker 1: This is Scott Patterson, you know me as Luke on
Speaker 1: the show Gilmore Girls, and I have a podcast called
Speaker 1: I Am All In. So you know, here's the thing
Speaker 1: about the podcast is, I've never ever, ever seen only
Speaker 1: seen one movie, and I've only seen the pilot, so
Speaker 1: a hundred fifty three episodes and three movies I have
Speaker 1: not seen. And I know you guys have been binge
Speaker 1: watching it through the COVID and you know for twenty
Speaker 1: one years, and the generations of families and mothers and daughters,
Speaker 1: and let's watch it together, guys. You know, we'll share stories.
Speaker 1: We'll share the memories. I've got a million stories to tell,
Speaker 1: especially about Sean Gunn and my loventabilia and a lot
Speaker 1: of other people too. And guess what. You can pull
Speaker 1: out your cell phones and use them during the podcast.
Speaker 1: I guess how am I gonna know you come into
Speaker 1: the diner into that. That's a different story. Listen to
Speaker 1: I Am all In on the I Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hey everybody,
Speaker 1: and don't forget follow us on Instagram at I Am
Speaker 1: all In podcast and email us at Gilmore at I
Speaker 1: heart radio dot com. Oh you gil More fans. If
Speaker 1: you're looking for the best cup of coffee in the world,
Speaker 1: go to my website for my company scott ep dot com,
Speaker 1: s c O T t y P dot com, scotty
Speaker 1: P dot Com Grade one specialty coffee. Would you agree
Speaker 1: that we're in denial. It's sort of a coping mechanism sometimes,
Speaker 1: or there's an acceptance to just not rock the boat.
Speaker 1: Because I it was leaving was harder than staying. I
Speaker 1: want to just put that out there for everyone who's struggling.
Speaker 1: And I believe in marriage. I fight the fight. I'm like, I,
Speaker 1: I actually, I don't know if that's true. Let me
Speaker 1: think I was gonna say, I believe in forever, but
Speaker 1: forever looks different. I don't know what forever looks like
Speaker 1: because of my my past, in my history. But I
Speaker 1: but I believe in love and I believe in long
Speaker 1: term commitment. But I I, I don't know. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think the idea that we have to give up this dream,
Speaker 1: this notion, this narrative that we had for our lives
Speaker 1: is so so devastating that the trauma of that, the
Speaker 1: fear of that keeps us paralyzed, keeps us stop, gets
Speaker 1: us rewriting the narrative so that we can stay, we
Speaker 1: can do the quote easier thing. And I know what
Speaker 1: you're saying. I mean, you play sort of underscore that,
Speaker 1: like right in a way, it was easier to stay.
Speaker 1: It makes sense that way we don't have to have
Speaker 1: that disorientation, experience that deep sense of loss and that grief,
Speaker 1: and face the world through this completely new lens. It
Speaker 1: makes so much sense that it's safer to stay, even
Speaker 1: if it's I don't know, toxic doing all the things
Speaker 1: that you or others might experience. How do you guide
Speaker 1: couples UM who are not quite like when you okay?
Speaker 1: So like we look through the lens and life is changing.
Speaker 1: It took me along a long time two accept the
Speaker 1: change and to even be okay in UM my new
Speaker 1: life like not being someone's wife like I liked being
Speaker 1: someone's wife. I liked living here together as a family.
Speaker 1: I liked I felt very safe having my husband living here,
Speaker 1: even though draw me bananas, UM, and I say that
Speaker 1: with love now because we drove each other bananas. But
Speaker 1: I there were so many parts of it that I liked,
Speaker 1: and the new life that didn't feel good, didn't feel comfortable,
Speaker 1: it felt necessary. UM. How do you help people who
Speaker 1: are like in the in the immediate shift of UM change,
Speaker 1: where they're not quite there yet to learn from the
Speaker 1: lessons and do all the things we know we're supposed
Speaker 1: to do and just the immediate coping, like what what
Speaker 1: do you tell people? How do you help people through
Speaker 1: that traumatic time, this time like now, like what they're
Speaker 1: going through. Yes, I try to remind people first and
Speaker 1: foremost or exactly what you're alluding to, which is that
Speaker 1: this is a trauma. You are in crisis, and our
Speaker 1: brains do not work during trauma and crisis. I call
Speaker 1: it sometimes brief brain. We're literally we are unable to process,
Speaker 1: we were unable to take a new information, We're unable
Speaker 1: to mobilize hopefulness. We're scientifically we can like baby brain,
Speaker 1: like you can't. Literally, there is something called a grief
Speaker 1: brain where your your neural pathways are not firing like
Speaker 1: they normally would be when you're not in trauma, when
Speaker 1: you're not in crisis. So while that might not make
Speaker 1: a person to feel sort of physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually
Speaker 1: better in the moment, that information, that sort of psycho education,
Speaker 1: is useful to know that, like this won't always be
Speaker 1: the case. I won't always feel this way, and I
Speaker 1: shouldn't rely on how I'm feeling now and how I'm
Speaker 1: feeling about the future to make predictions about what my
Speaker 1: life is going to look like. Rather, I should really
Speaker 1: lean into and acknowledge and validate that, like I'm in crisis,
Speaker 1: I'm in trauma. While it's completely uncomfortable and awful and devastating,
Speaker 1: this is kind of what it looks like and feels like,
Speaker 1: and it's all I should expect right now, and to
Speaker 1: have some faith that like the resilience that you have
Speaker 1: in there, and that um the support that you have,
Speaker 1: and that the very tools that you use to make
Speaker 1: the decision to leave will emerge as part of your
Speaker 1: support network if you will, both kind of internally and
Speaker 1: externally as you rebuild. I love to say, and I
Speaker 1: sort of alluded to this before, but I love to
Speaker 1: say to clients the idea that like, no feeling state
Speaker 1: ever stays the same, and when you really take that
Speaker 1: in and think about it, that's always true. You really
Speaker 1: can't name a feeling state that you're like that never shifted,
Speaker 1: that never changed, it never changed in its duration, intensity, etcetera.
Speaker 1: So leaning into that truth sometimes helps too. It's just
Speaker 1: kind of a factual thing. It won't always feel this way,
Speaker 1: and that you should um wait to make decisions about
Speaker 1: what you imagine your life needs to look like what
Speaker 1: you hope that your life is going to feel like
Speaker 1: until you're out of that initial phase and just lean
Speaker 1: into all the support and validation and comfort resources that
Speaker 1: you have in your life. Yeah yeah, yeah, that's no
Speaker 1: for sure. How do you feel about um also leaning
Speaker 1: into the pain? Because I like, as a working woman
Speaker 1: and a mom, and a lot of people do this,
Speaker 1: Like it's hard to sit with yourself and be in
Speaker 1: it and and I don't mean self evaluate and like,
Speaker 1: I don't mean that, but I mean just giving yourself
Speaker 1: room to cry, to sit in your own pain and
Speaker 1: feel those real emotions like I can remember feeling lost,
Speaker 1: feeling hopeless, feeling so sad and not knowing what the
Speaker 1: other side of it looked like or if it was
Speaker 1: ever gonna get like and and my my natural self
Speaker 1: wanted to just get super busy because I'm so good
Speaker 1: at that. I'm so good at like multitasking me burying myself,
Speaker 1: like work was my gentle therapeutic exercise if I were
Speaker 1: to just cram my schedule. I have fabulous friends at
Speaker 1: a great support system, and I was never strong enough
Speaker 1: as a younger woman to not do that. I think
Speaker 1: that's why I stayed married for so long because I
Speaker 1: was generally happy and kind of rolling through it. I
Speaker 1: had to force myself to let myself be really sad
Speaker 1: and lonely, and not in a punishing way. I had
Speaker 1: to allow myself to sit in the and feel it,
Speaker 1: and it did not feel good, and I would have
Speaker 1: much rather called My girlfriend had been like, hey, there's
Speaker 1: so many ways to drown, you know, to to drown
Speaker 1: on that. So I just was curious, um, what your
Speaker 1: thoughts are on that, because it's so much easier to
Speaker 1: get busy and just buff it out. I love that
Speaker 1: you're asking this question because it is critical, a requirement,
Speaker 1: mandatory to move through the pain, to sit in it,
Speaker 1: to feel it, to process it. Because what happens is
Speaker 1: that if we suppress it, minimize it, avoid it, dismiss it,
Speaker 1: find ways to make it go away, even healthy ways,
Speaker 1: even supportive ways, it gets stuck inside our body, like
Speaker 1: there's still emotional rent to pick right. Even if we
Speaker 1: find ways push it away, it's gonna come up and
Speaker 1: out in some way, although it's going to come up
Speaker 1: and out in an unhealthy, unproductive, even toxic way. So
Speaker 1: while every part of our mind, body, soul, wants to
Speaker 1: reject sitting in that pain. It's a critical part of
Speaker 1: this and we can do it in bits and pieces. Right,
Speaker 1: It doesn't have to be a deluge. If we don't
Speaker 1: have to um, sort of wallowing it every minute, every
Speaker 1: minute of every day. We can use those compartmentalization skills
Speaker 1: that you talked about, where you're sort of like, okay,
Speaker 1: it's I've been six hours into this today, Like I'm
Speaker 1: putting it away. I know it's going to be there
Speaker 1: for me. I'm calling that girlfriend and I'm you know,
Speaker 1: having that conversation, I'm bearing myself in work, etcetera. But
Speaker 1: he stops. But I do think it takes the kind
Speaker 1: of consciousness that you're talking about. It's really hard to
Speaker 1: access when you're going through it, but people who are
Speaker 1: listening can more deliberately think through it, like I need
Speaker 1: to give myself space to feel this pain, otherwise it's
Speaker 1: going to get stuck inside of me, and I'm going
Speaker 1: to get stuck, you know, sort of paralleled in justice,
Speaker 1: like no man's land, where you're not moving forward and um,
Speaker 1: you know, you're not back where you used to be.
Speaker 1: You're just sort of in the middle trying to avoid pain,
Speaker 1: like such a human nature kind of I'll do it,
Speaker 1: and it's real talk. It's way easier if you're not
Speaker 1: going to do it. That's that's part of the relief
Speaker 1: that we need. We need a respite from all of it.
Speaker 1: What we want to be conscious about, Like, if that's
Speaker 1: the only strategy we employ, it's going to be really
Speaker 1: hard to move through it. That's part. I'm glad you
Speaker 1: said that rest period in it, because, um, depending on
Speaker 1: how intensive personality is, it's not like one way or
Speaker 1: the other. And it's like you said, it's now I'm
Speaker 1: understanding that you know the clinical side of it too,
Speaker 1: which I didn't understand in it. So this is a
Speaker 1: learning um show for me too. UM. But making those
Speaker 1: those decisions and really understanding what's best You're like, we
Speaker 1: clearly don't know what's best for us because we just
Speaker 1: our whole world just freaking imploded and we're in survival mode.
Speaker 1: I do want to say something positive about this. Um
Speaker 1: an Easier said than done, because I'm I'm years healed
Speaker 1: in my process. I don't know if it ever totally heals,
Speaker 1: but I've evolved so much as a woman and a
Speaker 1: mother through my experiences. UM. The time that I gave
Speaker 1: myself alone and I was never alone in my whole life,
Speaker 1: like a whole series of bad choices. I was a
Speaker 1: bad picker as a young woman, didn't miss a beat
Speaker 1: in the dating world, got married really young, had four
Speaker 1: kids young. I mean, I just I just was a
Speaker 1: lover like I was not meant to be alone. I
Speaker 1: thought being alone was not by choice. I did not
Speaker 1: want to be alone. I would have much rather been
Speaker 1: the arms of the next best thing, and it would
Speaker 1: have felt a hell of a lot better than crying
Speaker 1: myself to sleep every night, which I did. Um, and
Speaker 1: I needed to The choice to be alone for me,
Speaker 1: being a mother looking back now was probably the most
Speaker 1: valuable awakening of my life because I had little ones
Speaker 1: and I have four little ones. Right. I never had
Speaker 1: a moment and I thought I was cruising. I thought
Speaker 1: I was doing really well at that speed. Need Um,
Speaker 1: I was cruising so great that I didn't even know
Speaker 1: my marriage was well in a park. But my point
Speaker 1: is that moment that I life handed me right. However
Speaker 1: you look at it, I'm really spiritual, so it depends
Speaker 1: on your belief system. But that moment, that transitional time
Speaker 1: in my life, that was really hard. Gave me the
Speaker 1: greatest gift as a woman that I have ever experienced.
Speaker 1: And I'm almost I'll be fifty this year. I never
Speaker 1: spent time alone. I never fought through that uncomfortable nous.
Speaker 1: I never slowed down to really listen to the language
Speaker 1: of my own soul, my heart. I wasn't strong enough. Um,
Speaker 1: and then I had a whole boatload of kids, so
Speaker 1: I didn't have time to do that. And any moment
Speaker 1: that I somebody, I had, somebody needed that time alone.
Speaker 1: Even though it was dark and hard. Um, there were
Speaker 1: so many powerful moments of light, and I learned so
Speaker 1: much about myself as a woman. But I don't think
Speaker 1: I could have learned with a man laying in bed
Speaker 1: next to me. I don't think I could have learned
Speaker 1: with a man be having coffee with me in the morning,
Speaker 1: or a baby or whatever light whatever your life narrates.
Speaker 1: So I just I just want to say that that,
Speaker 1: you know, in the hardest times of our life, I
Speaker 1: found that. Um, they were powerful moments of self discovery
Speaker 1: for me as a woman, and I'm really grateful for that. Um.
Speaker 1: It wasn't the way I wanted my story, my love
Speaker 1: story to end, I had a different idea of marriage.
Speaker 1: I think I was in love with the entity of
Speaker 1: marriage more than I was in love with my marriage.
Speaker 1: And I would have bet my life that I would
Speaker 1: have stayed married forever first time. That's who I thought
Speaker 1: I was. I believed in forever. I thought I was
Speaker 1: gonna have this happy ever after family. We were all
Speaker 1: gonna my daughters were going to grow up and know
Speaker 1: that you get married and you get to kinda on
Speaker 1: that man and it's forever, mom Like that broke my heart.
Speaker 1: But I learned so much about myself during that time
Speaker 1: because I never had that time. Yes, as a woman,
Speaker 1: I mean you're talking about being prescribed that as but
Speaker 1: being prescribed is kind of quiet, that's kind of rum
Speaker 1: for self reflection. That yielded something that perhaps you wouldn't
Speaker 1: have found another way. Do you get that as a
Speaker 1: as a wife and a mother unless you are a
Speaker 1: badass evolved and you know about boundaries, Which my other
Speaker 1: wish for everybody listening is create those boundaries while you
Speaker 1: are married, while you are in it, before you're a mother,
Speaker 1: when you're a young woman, carry that through your life,
Speaker 1: your love, whatever your chaos is. How do you create
Speaker 1: those boundaries when you don't know how desperately you need them,
Speaker 1: and like losing sight of that woman behind the scenes,
Speaker 1: Like I didn't know this in my twenties thirties. I
Speaker 1: just figured it out, to be honest, creating those boundaries
Speaker 1: for growth, for stillness, for quiet time, like you said,
Speaker 1: for just selfishness, which is not selfish. It's like this
Speaker 1: is like your this is your your lifeboat right here. Um,
Speaker 1: we don't know how to do as a younger woman.
Speaker 1: We're not taught do agree like we're not like my
Speaker 1: mom didn't teach me and you had a great mom.
Speaker 1: Thank god. I have a beautiful mom who was soulful
Speaker 1: and loving and romantic. Not great at marriage either, but
Speaker 1: she was a lot of awesome things. But she didn't
Speaker 1: teach me or like, we're not taught our generation about
Speaker 1: boundaries and about putting yourself first and that that's okay,
Speaker 1: And yeah, I'm not raising my daughters like that. I'm
Speaker 1: raising my daughters to live out loud and and to
Speaker 1: know what feels good and to know what feels bad.
Speaker 1: And I'd like to raise them to believe in forever.
Speaker 1: But through their life challenges, I'm teaching them that sometimes
Speaker 1: change is necessary, and then it's okay. And it doesn't
Speaker 1: mean you bail when it gets hard. It's not that
Speaker 1: it's it's sometimes change is necessary. And I think that's growth.
Speaker 1: And that was my freedom in the trauma of my divorce,
Speaker 1: being married to my soul mate, who I thought was
Speaker 1: my soul the love of my life. Like I had
Speaker 1: to define giving up and failing and call it let
Speaker 1: letting go. And I had to move through that um
Speaker 1: and bleed inside and then he'll slowly and healed together
Speaker 1: here separately. Ah, all kinds like this is like we
Speaker 1: could talk for hours every day about this. You know,
Speaker 1: you need real moments. You need freedom, I think, male female,
Speaker 1: to do whatever you need to do during your time. Yes,
Speaker 1: you are. You touched on so many important things. I'll
Speaker 1: pick out the now. We're all over the place. But
Speaker 1: it's like it so related. But the sort of consciousness
Speaker 1: that narrative around the boundaries and having time and space
Speaker 1: and deep thought around what you'll tolerate and what you want,
Speaker 1: what you won't, what's best for you and what works
Speaker 1: for you and what really defines love for you and
Speaker 1: what are your deal breakers and all of those things.
Speaker 1: Being able to tolerate the possibility of loss, the possibility
Speaker 1: of disconnection, the possibility of not having the fairy tale
Speaker 1: from the outside looking in, and the service of taking
Speaker 1: care of oneself, right, the service of taking care of
Speaker 1: I'm writing this down because you know, it's so amazing,
Speaker 1: Like when you listen to podcast to everybody like there's
Speaker 1: so much information. I'm like a note. I'm like taking
Speaker 1: notes because we're so lucky to have you and your expertise.
Speaker 1: You know, not everybody you can afford therapy knows how
Speaker 1: to get Like it's just a weird time, right, not
Speaker 1: everybody even believes in it. Um, the service of taking
Speaker 1: care of yourself, that's amazing, right, But that then to
Speaker 1: your point, around people don't do that, run how we
Speaker 1: take how we raise our girls, and that kind of narrative, right,
Speaker 1: getting really specific, really mindful around those things probably isn't
Speaker 1: something that happens enough when our girls, well really our kids.
Speaker 1: But we're talking about sort of a specific pocket of
Speaker 1: moving through the world, right, that that needs to be
Speaker 1: much more conscious and much more brought out and thought about.
Speaker 1: And sometimes a crisis, a trauma like a divorce, starts
Speaker 1: getting someone who really hasn't reflected on that in like
Speaker 1: a real way, in a real way that connects to
Speaker 1: thoughts and actions, and setting up a life that resonates
Speaker 1: and connects with those core beliefs sort of hasn't really
Speaker 1: been done before. So that can be the press of
Speaker 1: his upon which one is standing as they embark in
Speaker 1: the afterlife of a of a marriage. Is the possibility
Speaker 1: of kind of discovering those things about that's so beautiful. Um,
Speaker 1: the service of taking care of yourself, knowing how to
Speaker 1: create boundaries. Not you said something else and I wrote
Speaker 1: it down, and I don't want to interrupt you. Um,
Speaker 1: I'll and I'll share like a little personal story you said,
Speaker 1: defining what's a deal breaker? So you have you ever
Speaker 1: seen those little like decks of cards or those little
Speaker 1: you go to like a spar or whatever you pull
Speaker 1: out like a card and it has a message for
Speaker 1: you on it, or like you know, those little like
Speaker 1: spiritual like little decks whatever. I like, goofy stuff like that. So, um,
Speaker 1: I think I was at my hair my hair salon
Speaker 1: one day and I pull out the little card and
Speaker 1: the cards said exactly this quote. I still have it today.
Speaker 1: How crazy is it? And it said, what is a
Speaker 1: deal breaker in your relationship. So I was like, huh
Speaker 1: and my relationship was fun at the time. I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I don't know, let me think about that. I put
Speaker 1: in my wallet and it was really close to my
Speaker 1: time of acceptance in my relationship and I came across
Speaker 1: it and it was like my ding. It was like
Speaker 1: my light, my sirens song. I was like, that is
Speaker 1: a deal breaker in my relationship and that happens all
Speaker 1: the time and wake up Brooke like, okay, yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1: I like I still have that. And I kept that
Speaker 1: card like in the little clear part in my wallet
Speaker 1: where your license is, so I didn't see my license,
Speaker 1: I saw deal breaker card. And it was just like
Speaker 1: that reminder. That's subtle, little reminder of you know what,
Speaker 1: like not okay. Some things are are not okay, and um,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a delicate dance to even talk about
Speaker 1: this because I'm not pointing fingers or anything. I had
Speaker 1: beautiful moments and horrific It's my marriage and I'm accountable
Speaker 1: as well as much as he has for all of them.
Speaker 1: It's not a male female thing at all. This is
Speaker 1: like a real conversation and Noobia's conversation about defining what
Speaker 1: feels bad. And I talked to my kids about that
Speaker 1: a lot. Recognize what feels bad because if something feels bad,
Speaker 1: look into that, like dissect that, like get down in that.
Speaker 1: Don't ignore that. If something feel it could be anything,
Speaker 1: could be your friend, It could be a tone, it
Speaker 1: could be like a sense memory, it could be sub
Speaker 1: conscious stuff. You know that we don't even know about
Speaker 1: pay attention to things that feel bad. And I don't
Speaker 1: know why we're so accustomed in our society to this
Speaker 1: like mediocre life, this mediocre Mr good enough, Mrs good
Speaker 1: enough marriage, that's just like good enough. And you know,
Speaker 1: you know, easy for us to say in this world,
Speaker 1: like we have this fabulous life, But why are we
Speaker 1: subscribing two it's good enough? Yeah? What is that? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean I think there are a number of factors
Speaker 1: that intersect that. I think there are often a fear
Speaker 1: of assertiveness, right, and I say that we're deliberately not aggression,
Speaker 1: but it's sort of willing to stand up for what
Speaker 1: one feels I deserve or scary scary scary to um
Speaker 1: to sort of um uh get the sort of get
Speaker 1: the disappointment of the person that we were dealing with
Speaker 1: right to bring that towards us, to have them be
Speaker 1: angry at us, to have them be disappointed us by
Speaker 1: saying this isn't working for me. How can we make
Speaker 1: this look different? Can you imagine those words of anybody
Speaker 1: that if we were all mature enough before the fan
Speaker 1: to just say, hey to your lover or your partner,
Speaker 1: you're your best friend, your your coworker, this isn't really
Speaker 1: working for me. How can we can we have a
Speaker 1: dialogue about making this better? Like if I would have
Speaker 1: done that early on my marriage, instead of just fighting
Speaker 1: it or getting resentment or shutting down or shutting up
Speaker 1: or waiting until just like opening up the narrative in
Speaker 1: a in any relationship, just talking about what feels good
Speaker 1: and what feels bad, sensually, sexually, intimately, with your kids,
Speaker 1: with life, love, work, all of that tools Like we
Speaker 1: you know, I just feel like we're we're not raised
Speaker 1: like with this tool set, this this toolbox, we have
Speaker 1: it inside of us. You know, I I guide female retreats,
Speaker 1: not since COVID, but um, you know I I have
Speaker 1: a mindful wellness, mindful fitness app called Brooke Brook Body,
Speaker 1: and it's so much more than just fitness. It's very
Speaker 1: much about mind, body and soul. But I, through my
Speaker 1: own transition and my growth and probably my pain, I
Speaker 1: sort of fell into this female retreat UM program and
Speaker 1: I loved it. I probably did six of them when
Speaker 1: I was healing through a marriage. So I learned so
Speaker 1: much from other women going through what they're going through
Speaker 1: while I was fighting my best fight. And I learned,
Speaker 1: um what I wanted to do. I learned what not
Speaker 1: to do. I learned how feelings are buried under the rug.
Speaker 1: I learned how women lost sight of who they wanted to.
Speaker 1: I learned how to sort of become the woman I
Speaker 1: wanted to be if you will, and um, you know
Speaker 1: I I just brought that up because there's that transition,
Speaker 1: you know, that realization that work that time. It's so
Speaker 1: it's hard work. It's really really hard work. And I
Speaker 1: was so blessed to be able to do that. And
Speaker 1: things that you're talking about like being assort of you know,
Speaker 1: being strong and not being labeled as a bit, you know,
Speaker 1: giving yourself permission, not feeling like a victim like I remember,
Speaker 1: I did a whole retreat and it was about permission
Speaker 1: and allowing women a lot of women came because they
Speaker 1: needed strength, and we took a shift and it became
Speaker 1: about allowing themselves to become unraveled. And they're like, what,
Speaker 1: I didn't come here to ball apart. And I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: maybe you need ball apart and not carry the way
Speaker 1: to the world all the time. And there's like this
Speaker 1: release that happens. I think when we can own some
Speaker 1: of that, that struggle and that pain, because you know,
Speaker 1: most of us are really good at just powering through
Speaker 1: stuff and not slowing down to become unraveled. And um,
Speaker 1: there's all these labels, you know. Yeah, I think part
Speaker 1: of like what you were talking about, being able to
Speaker 1: assert yourself, being able to ask for what you want,
Speaker 1: being able to say, I didn't look what happened back there?
Speaker 1: Can we talk about? It is so confirred. What's so
Speaker 1: confronting for so many reasons. Right, we have to potentially
Speaker 1: court people's disappointment. We have to face our own vulnerabilities
Speaker 1: around uh, potentially someone abandoning us, someone being angry at us,
Speaker 1: someone deciding, um that we're not we're not worth fighting
Speaker 1: for in that moment. Right, there's a lot to confront
Speaker 1: when we take the risk of saying I need more,
Speaker 1: I need something different, this isn't working for me. Right,
Speaker 1: we have to stand in our own skin. We just
Speaker 1: have to be like present and own our own needs.
Speaker 1: And a lot of ways there's a lot of messages
Speaker 1: that remain around women that that that don't completely encourage
Speaker 1: that and hold those places right, And so it's super
Speaker 1: confronting to do what sounds simple, which is to do
Speaker 1: a version of like, hey, like what you said that
Speaker 1: there really hurt me, Like can we think about that together?
Speaker 1: Which is like what I talked about a couple of therapy, Right,
Speaker 1: that's what I talk about when I do coaching in
Speaker 1: the workplace, a version of that, being able to just say,
Speaker 1: like that didn't work for me, that hurt my feelings,
Speaker 1: that made me uncomfortable. Can we sit and talk about it.
Speaker 1: It seems so basic and straightforward, but it's super confronting,
Speaker 1: super vulnerable for everybody, and so being able to get that, yeah,
Speaker 1: I get that what you're saying, because as a young woman,
Speaker 1: I didn't know how to do that I need. I
Speaker 1: knew how to go and push you away and shut
Speaker 1: you out or maybe get angry or maybe go I'm
Speaker 1: never going to try that again because that feels bad,
Speaker 1: or or I knew how to just not hide from it,
Speaker 1: but just avoid it as a woman, and maybe I'm
Speaker 1: not listening and thinking name I'm where. I'm the other
Speaker 1: side of it now as a woman. Now, I speak
Speaker 1: all of it because it's my only way to be seen, right.
Speaker 1: And I remember when we first started our podcast, Intimate Knowledge,
Speaker 1: and we had a conversation um Megan Edmunds and and
Speaker 1: Leela Deville has been amazing intimacy coach, and we were
Speaker 1: all trying to define what intimacy is. We were having
Speaker 1: that conversation with our audience. It was amazing how what
Speaker 1: a struggle it was to define that word, and how
Speaker 1: many different opinions there were, and the common denominator we
Speaker 1: really came up with it. It was it was about
Speaker 1: being heard, being seen being heard. Um. I thought it
Speaker 1: was so fascinating, Like how good that feels when someone
Speaker 1: just goes OK, I get that, I understand that, or
Speaker 1: maybe they don't understand and say I don't understand that.
Speaker 1: Tell me more about that. I could imagine if your
Speaker 1: partner was like, I don't know what you mean, can
Speaker 1: you tell me about that? You'd be like oh my god, yes, yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: well that when you said that actually kind of giving bills,
Speaker 1: that really distills it down to I think a universal
Speaker 1: truth around intimacy, if we all really are vulnerable enough
Speaker 1: to consider it, right, is that that is what intimacy
Speaker 1: feels like for all of us, men and women alike.
Speaker 1: That if we're seeing, if we're heard, if we're appreciated,
Speaker 1: if we're known in our vulnerable spots, we feel close
Speaker 1: to somebody. And I'll use that And it's so confronting
Speaker 1: to both be witnessed as being vulnerable and to witness
Speaker 1: another invulnerability. Right. Yes, it's triggering, and so we all
Speaker 1: find different ways to avoid it, whether that's by accepting
Speaker 1: things that don't feel good to us, glossing over, getting
Speaker 1: super busy, um, engaging in all sorts of behavior to dismiss, avoid, suppress, minimize,
Speaker 1: and that stuff becomes residue between people relationships, and sometimes
Speaker 1: there's so much residue you can't come back. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's amazing work that you do. UM. I remember being
Speaker 1: in therapy and just being so frustrated because sometimes you
Speaker 1: just can't see yourself and I can't see your partner
Speaker 1: because you're so heated in your own reaction mode. And
Speaker 1: you know, it's kind of like therapy one on one.
Speaker 1: You know, you gotta stop, you gotta listen. You know,
Speaker 1: it's it's really so hard to do. UM. I also
Speaker 1: want to say, just haven't been there, and please agree
Speaker 1: or disagree with this. I really believe now looking back
Speaker 1: that marriage doesn't define you, and certainly divorce does not
Speaker 1: define you men and women. UM. Having a broken family,
Speaker 1: I don't even like that word, but so redesigning of
Speaker 1: a family. Like I, I really struggled with who I
Speaker 1: was afterward because I wanted to be married and I
Speaker 1: liked being a wife, but I also struggled with the
Speaker 1: consequences of my marriage is and the that way it
Speaker 1: was going to affect my children negatively, UM and I
Speaker 1: and I and I do own that negatively. But I've
Speaker 1: also been able to get them so much love and
Speaker 1: reassure them that they have two homes and two places
Speaker 1: of love, and UM, I've reminded them, you know, that
Speaker 1: they're not alone in that. And you know, I remember
Speaker 1: my children were like, oh my god, we're the only
Speaker 1: ones like that when they were young, when you know,
Speaker 1: we look at the look at the statistics which you
Speaker 1: know not mean nothing. But I had to really find words. UM,
Speaker 1: I had to take ownership. I had to get really
Speaker 1: real with them, and I had to try to keep
Speaker 1: an age appropriate open dialogue with my children at different ages.
Speaker 1: And I also, UM, I know we could go on
Speaker 1: and on and on, So I I want to just
Speaker 1: end my thought on this and that I fought the
Speaker 1: hardest to stay open and to continue to believe in love.
Speaker 1: And I really believe in love, and I really lost
Speaker 1: a deep love and my heart wanted to just just
Speaker 1: like close up because it was way easier, and I
Speaker 1: fought and fought and fought and fought to UM, I
Speaker 1: want to love again, not right away, but to be
Speaker 1: capable of loving again, and to not lose hope in
Speaker 1: the possibility of a different kind of love, and to
Speaker 1: know that love after a while, after a while, So
Speaker 1: I'm going to fast forward to knowing that love comes
Speaker 1: in different shapes and sizes, and it sounds different and
Speaker 1: it feels different. And that was hard. But I really
Speaker 1: fought to keep my heart open, and I talked to
Speaker 1: my children about that a lot, and even in pain
Speaker 1: when friends let them down own and boyfriend's breakup and
Speaker 1: like I was saying, like just love, like just have
Speaker 1: an open heart and UM, in that space, you know,
Speaker 1: friendship can come in and comfort can come in, and
Speaker 1: family members and partners in different shapes and sizes, and UM,
Speaker 1: I guess that's my my, my, my wish, Like make
Speaker 1: that a goal, Like I'm going through the dark times
Speaker 1: and pain of love, Like just keep loving yourself, love yourself,
Speaker 1: let love in. Um it's easier said than done. I
Speaker 1: couldn't have said that to you three years ago. Well,
Speaker 1: you're you're talking about a really important concept that you
Speaker 1: now can reflect on in retrospect. But that love has
Speaker 1: different seasons and show different ways in different forms. And
Speaker 1: that's part of what you've learned in your journey is
Speaker 1: that there was a season for your marriages. And some
Speaker 1: of that was amazing and beautiful and full of important lessons,
Speaker 1: and some of the it was devastating, collapsing and flattening. Right,
Speaker 1: But at the end that if you maintain like, UM,
Speaker 1: an open relationship with love, that love isn't just one thing.
Speaker 1: It's not just like amazing connection and intimacy. It's like
Speaker 1: complex and down and ebbs and flows, and that's like
Speaker 1: real love. Yeah, right, I mean, and who are we
Speaker 1: just like say, what real love looks like and you
Speaker 1: know what marriage looks like or what the perfect family
Speaker 1: looks like, Like I have a blended family. We've been
Speaker 1: through a lot this past year, and the pandemic like
Speaker 1: brought us all together. Like I've never felt so much
Speaker 1: joy and happiness in my home. I didn't know when
Speaker 1: that was going to come again. Actually it's happy or
Speaker 1: vibes and energy is better now than it ever was
Speaker 1: in my life. So that's sort of redesigning of my life.
Speaker 1: Um that rebuilding, right, taking ownership with that, becoming the
Speaker 1: architect of my life, like you know, and being confused
Speaker 1: and lost and not knowing where getting there. Like I
Speaker 1: have love in my life right now, and let me
Speaker 1: tell you it is different. It feels different, it looks different,
Speaker 1: and it is so beautiful. Is so different. But sometimes
Speaker 1: I'm even like what was I thinking? Like what was
Speaker 1: I doing? And you know you said that in the beginning,
Speaker 1: we ask ourselves why I tolerated, why I did this,
Speaker 1: why I didn't do that. Well, we don't know we're
Speaker 1: in it when we're in it, So you know that grace,
Speaker 1: that that that grace to just just be where you
Speaker 1: need to be through the process. Well, And I love
Speaker 1: I just want to highlight something that you've said a
Speaker 1: couple of times in here, that it's so important around
Speaker 1: divorce and families splitting in children and the year of
Speaker 1: what the impact is going to be on the kids
Speaker 1: and the guilt and the worry that comes along with it.
Speaker 1: And I do a lot of work in the parenting space,
Speaker 1: and and I love to say a version of like,
Speaker 1: our job is not to not have bad things happen
Speaker 1: in our lives or for our children not to witness
Speaker 1: it or be around it. I mean, if we could have,
Speaker 1: we would, but that's not really our job. Our job
Speaker 1: up is to sort of send a message that like, yes, tricky, hard,
Speaker 1: difficult things happen, and like here's how you stand and
Speaker 1: find your way through it, how you build resonance and
Speaker 1: resilience and acknowledge the pain, sitting deal with it, mobilized resources,
Speaker 1: and like stay graceful and get through it right. And yes,
Speaker 1: like I mean, as you're reflecting on how your family
Speaker 1: showed up in this last year, that that's part of
Speaker 1: the gift that you've given them is not trying to
Speaker 1: shield them from the pain, not try to pretend that
Speaker 1: there aren't mistakes or difficulties, but rather that like, this
Speaker 1: is what it looks like when you're trying to push through.
Speaker 1: And so when they're trying to push through stuff and
Speaker 1: their young lives and as they get older, they will
Speaker 1: use that as part of their narrative. And that is
Speaker 1: the gift we want to give our kids, not the
Speaker 1: idea that like tricky stuff doesn't happen. Yeah, thank you,
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, you've given us so much great advice.
Speaker 1: Thank you for being with us. I I really, I
Speaker 1: really enjoyed this when you tell the audience where they
Speaker 1: can find you and um connect with you. Of course,
Speaker 1: I'm just sort of rebuilding my Instagram page and I'm
Speaker 1: about to start populating it with a lot of information
Speaker 1: around couples and paraging and all that stuff. And so
Speaker 1: that's at Dr Hillary l A. So it's h I
Speaker 1: L l A r Y Dr Hillary l A. And
Speaker 1: then at my website, Dr Hillary gold Shart dot com.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, so valuable. I love talking to you,
Speaker 1: and you're super compassionate and gentle. Thank you so nice
Speaker 1: to meet you you as well. Good bye. So while
Speaker 1: you're on with Dr gold schert E News just came
Speaker 1: up with a story about Joan and Mike. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: have obtained her divorce filing today and it reads that
Speaker 1: they are separating from Jenna, separating from the former football player,
Speaker 1: and the reasons are given are inappropriate marital conduct or
Speaker 1: reconcilable differences and adultery. Additionated documents revealed Jen and Mike
Speaker 1: entered a post nuptial agreement and she wishes aircraft. They
Speaker 1: of the two children. She asks Mike to pay alimony
Speaker 1: and cover the costs of her legal fees. It's so
Speaker 1: freaking ugly that we get to I'm coming from a
Speaker 1: public figure now that all the gory details are there.
Speaker 1: I mean I remember going through it and like the
Speaker 1: financial public share, like why has that any of anyone's business?
Speaker 1: But but but we're in it, and you know, Jan
Speaker 1: and Micro in it, and I think that's it's hard
Speaker 1: when you see that and you read it, and it's
Speaker 1: going to keep popping up and showing up, and you're
Speaker 1: gonna be sitting at home and you're watching the news,
Speaker 1: and so that's all part of that big picture. We're
Speaker 1: in the business, right, so ah, but that's you know,
Speaker 1: that's tough. And UM, you know, I do want to
Speaker 1: say that, um Jan is going to be back next week. UM,
Speaker 1: so everybody could take a deep breath right there. UM,
Speaker 1: And you know what, it's hard, like they gotta they
Speaker 1: gotta roll through it. And I'm so happy that I
Speaker 1: was able to come on and fill in today and
Speaker 1: you know, give her a moment. And and I'm so
Speaker 1: protective of, like my friends privacy and I'm so sensitive
Speaker 1: to even talking about people's personal life. And I feel like,
Speaker 1: you know, this episode today was about a lot of things,
Speaker 1: and having Dr Hillary here is so valuable. And I'm
Speaker 1: really comfortable, you know, sharing my journey because you know
Speaker 1: it's come full circle now, but you know, it's always changing,
Speaker 1: and um, there's always an opportunity to do better and
Speaker 1: to learn and to be better and to keep healing
Speaker 1: and growing. And UM, I just I don't know. I
Speaker 1: I meet the whole subject matter with such tremendous compassion, um,
Speaker 1: and it brings me back to that place of of
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's a it's a painful time. And um,
Speaker 1: although the public support and the comments and all of that,
Speaker 1: you know, a really feel can feel really good and
Speaker 1: really supportive. I remember there were times in my life
Speaker 1: I needed to just shut it down, I need to
Speaker 1: check out. I remember posting my statement, you know, like
Speaker 1: Jenna did last week, and I read it on People
Speaker 1: dot Com next week. Last week, I remember feeling like
Speaker 1: a sense of relief and the time and energy that
Speaker 1: went into that, and part of me was like, do
Speaker 1: I have to do this? Do I owe this to everyone?
Speaker 1: And then part of me was like appreciating the love
Speaker 1: and the care. But it's just like it just got real,
Speaker 1: like when you have to read it, I have to
Speaker 1: read about your life. That's that's really hard. That's hard. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you for being here today. I can't think advantage
Speaker 1: already better. Who could have given us better perspective on
Speaker 1: the situation? So thank you so much. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: I'm no expert. It was good to have Hillary to
Speaker 1: pitch and catch that, but I meant all of it,
Speaker 1: and I love to come back and um, I just
Speaker 1: want to send them a lot of love and healing
Speaker 1: light and energy. And I'm easy to find as well,
Speaker 1: So I'm here. I'm here. Msssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss