Christina: Hey everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Her Heart Heals – Divorce Radio. It’s Christina, and this is gonna be a solo cast, just me. I really wanted to hop on and go over some of the common things that I hear about from other divorce women who reflected back on their journey after divorce and share some of these common things that people have considered to be quote-unquote mistakes.

Christina: Now I do wanna preface and state that the way that we heal and the way that we process and the way that we do things, there really are no mistakes, right? It all is going to be dependent on doing the best that you can with the information that you have at that time. So in no way is this meant to come off as letting anybody know that their healing journey is wrong or right.

Christina: It is whatever is right for you at that moment. However, with each of these topics that I’m gonna talk about, I am bringing in solutions to how to get through it. How to go back and kind of reassess the way that some of these items have been handled. So I’m gonna go ahead and jump in in a little bit, but what I wanted to also preface with is that if any of these sparks any interest, if you wanna go deeper if you’ve been searching for a way to speed up your healing journey or soften your healing journey at all after divorce.

Christina: You might wanna consider adding yourself to the waitlist. I have a free masterclass coming up called Divorce from Divorce without feeling like a failure. This is really to kick off this very beautiful, very special, small, intimate container. This program that I’m putting together is for women who are ready to step out of the divorced identity and really own their future and be reinvigorated by their future. So if you feel stuck, if you feel like you are tired of carrying around this guilt and shame of being a divorced woman, this might be for you. So I’m gonna put a link in the show notes to join or sign up for that free masterclass, which is when I will be kicking off opening that private container that I’ve been talking about. 

Christina: So, okay. Now that I’ve got all that out of the way let’s dive right in. I wanted to also mention I’m gonna list these, but these are by no means in any sort of special order. It’s just going down the list in the order that I thought of them.

Christina: So, item number one. One of the biggest mistakes that women make after divorce is numbing their pain using vices and distractions and really just having the mindset that time will heal the wound. Now we’ve all gotten, you know, nicked or gotten a scar on our body at some point in our life. Right? 

Christina: If you’ve noticed, the bigger the cut or, the bigger the wound, the bigger the scar, and there’s a lot of different things that you can do to heal a scar or have the scar be less visible, but ultimately it does take time and applying maybe like a special cream. I even know some people who have gotten scars, like lasered different things like that to help minimize the look of the scar.

Christina: So it’s kind of like that, right? Time alone can heal a lot of wounds. If they’re a little bit more closer to the skin, speaking in the physical form and little things that happen throughout the day throughout our lives as far as emotional scars. Time can heal a lot of wounds, but time cannot heal all wounds just by itself.

Christina: With something along the lines of a divorce and the magnitude and the size of how that impacts your life. That’s a major life moment, and for this, it really is time plus work time plus action. Right. We can go to the gym every day, but if we don’t work out and then three weeks down the line. We’re wondering why we don’t see results because we’ve just like done half the effort.

Christina: We went to the gym, and then maybe we just like went and sat in the locker room or went and got a smoothie or something like that. You’re not gonna see results unless you actually pair it with action. Another thing that I wanted to bring up as to why this is not a good idea is because this can also lead to dependence on certain vices.

Christina: Now, if you think of being married, we did rely on our partner a lot and going from relying on someone to being independent, sometimes we can place our dependent on things to fulfill us. And that can lead to creating unwanted patterns and cycles throughout our life. So the dependence on some of these things can create patterns over time.

Christina: So what’s the solution here, right? If this sounds like something that you’re doing, something that you find yourself subconsciously leaning towards, you know, you are trying to go out and be distracted hanging out with your girlfriends. Maybe you’re shopping too much online. Whatever that is.

Christina: If this is speaking to you, a pretty simple solution can really be to sit with your feelings. Being comfortable in being alone is really the solution. The reason why is because we are trying to figure out what the opportunity is with the event that just happened, and we can really only discover those answers within ourselves.

Christina: So I definitely wanna encourage you to sit with your feelings. Get to know them. An Idea that comes to mind too. That is actually really, really empowering is take yourself out on a date. Now I know it can probably seem extremely intimidating to go out to like a restaurant that’s pretty, pretty filled with people.

Christina: So, if that seems a little bit daunting to you. You can start small. Maybe just take yourself out on a walk, and you just start there. Next, you can take yourself out for coffee, but don’t just run in and order a coffee and then run back into your car, but like go to a coffee shop, order a coffee, and sit there by yourself and enjoy the coffee with yourself.

Christina: So that is the first item. The second thing that I have heard as well and that I do see a lot. Thinking that it was the other person’s fault and their fault alone. Now the issue here with that is that there’s really no accountability here, and fully thinking that an event like this is someone else’s fault 100% can also lead to us not taking accountability in other areas of our life as well. 

Christina: So I wanna say there are absolutely shitty people in this world, and your divorce could 100% have been driven by something that your ex did that was not your fault. But every single interaction we have in this world is a reflection of ourselves and things that need to change things that the universe brings up into our reality to say, Hey, Hey, attention to me. This is a detour over here.

Christina: We need to detour from this situation. So had it not been for my divorce. I would’ve never had the opportunity to heal myself from other things. Right. My divorce was this catalyst for healing that made me just value my divorce. It ended up not even being about my ex. It was like I wanted to know how I could have married someone with so many red flags.

Christina: Right. And that was the ownership that I really wanted to take on, what led me to pick this person. A person like that could do all of these things. So every action has a reaction, and that’s just the law of the world. So a solution here could be that understanding both mistreatment, unfair treatment, and an opportunity to improve can exist simultaneously.

Christina: You can have both a shitty X that caused you to do X, Y and Z. But at the end of the day, there’s also a golden nugget there for you and your life and your life ahead. And I’m gonna keep plugging my free masterclass, but if this is something that really strikes a chord with you, definitely sign up. Click on the link in the show notes because I’m gonna go way deep into this specific topic here in the masterclass. 

Christina: Okay. Item number three, seeking revenge, right? Working on themselves to impress an X. So revenge is a great motivator. I think back to Chloe Kardashian, she had a show called revenge body, and I know for sure. At least for myself, um, it’s a huge motivator when you’re working out.

Christina: It is great to use something like that and use those feelings when you’re pushing your body in like the physical form, but really it’s actually just temporary. And it can also create a way of life where we’re living consistently in the past. Now I know that you guys may think like, well, no, I just use it to motivate myself in the gym or something like that.

Christina: But start to notice if we’re focused on something, like, for example, when I am in my drop 10 pounds phase. I’m like going hard with diet and exercise. It like really consumes my day, and I really kind of have to plan out my day, and with that, you’re also motivating yourself, and so there’s always this kind of tiny little loop in the background that lives in our subconscious.

Christina: Where we’re like, yeah, he’s gonna be sorry or something like that. So just be careful with the stories that are playing in a loop in our brain, because while that revenge will feel damn good, when you’re looking all fine, and you actually see your ex, and he’s like regretting at the big time, it really is temporary.

Christina: At the end of the day, you have to live with yourself a hundred percent of the time. So start by changing the why behind you do things. Right. At the end of the day, if you go and see your X and looking all cute, you know, that you did it for you and that revenge feeling, quote-unquote, is really almost, just kind of like the cherry on top. So changing the why behind you do things and being more self-serving is the solution to that one. 

Christina: Okay. Item number four, which is kind of now going towards the opposite side of the spectrum, which is women believing that they deserved this feeling. This shame, this guilt, and you walk around kind of like a martyr, feeling like you deserved this pain.

Christina: Now, I can actually attest to this feeling because I was the one that filed for divorce. And so I walked around feeling like I just had to kind of take it. I brought this upon myself. So I’m just gonna go about it and own my pain, and then I went back to, you know, mistake, number one, time, heals all wounds and thinking that it would just pass.

Christina: I was definitely wrong on that, but there’s a difference between feeling something and letting that feeling take over your life. Right. What else will you start to believe that you deserve? And it goes back to what I was saying about playing things on a loop in your subconscious. So if this item speaks to you and you are walking around.

Christina: These feelings of shame and guilt, but you really feel like you deserved it, really start to pay attention to that, and the first thing that you can do to soften that is just simply by acknowledging it at the moment as it’s happening. And you’ll start to observe that maybe you live thinking these things several hundreds of times a day, all day, every day.

Christina: And if this is you. I’m gonna go back to what I said about it. There’s a difference between feeling something and just observing it and just saying, oh, okay. I am feeling this and letting it take over your life. So the shift here is that once you notice that you’re thinking that or that you’re letting yourself go there. You have the power and the control to say, okay, well, this feeling stops here.

Christina: Yeah. I’m feeling it, but I’m not going to let it impact whatever decisions that you are facing throughout that day.

Christina: Item number five. This is actually a big one. Women become closed off to marriage again. Now the thought of wanting to get married again absolutely scares the crap out of me. Especially when I heard the statistics of getting divorced again, so it was already high getting divorced the first time. I think they said it’s anywhere between 40 and 60% of all marriages in, in the United States will end in divorce.

Christina: Well, my friends, it actually jumps once we’ve been divorced once. We are 60 to 70% more likely to get divorced a second time. But for me, that just means that people aren’t doing their part in healing, and they’re using things like example, number one, time, heals all wounds, or something like that. Right.

Christina: Where they’re. Avoiding, avoiding, avoiding deflecting, deflecting, deflecting, and then hopping into another relationship and thinking that it’s the person this time it’ll be different and it’s not so, but I wanted to point out, though, there’s a huge difference in no and not right now, or we’ll see. What I have seen is that flat-out saying, no, I am not gonna get married again.

Christina: It definitely comes across that. You’re still holding on to a lot of resentment, which tells us what, right? There’s more inner work that needs to be done. So be careful with how you. Speak about marriage again in the future. We don’t know what the future will bring, and maybe we don’t end up getting married again, but it’s not going to be because you are closing off your heart, and you’re trying to protect it from getting hurt again.

Christina: Again, that’s a very natural thing to feel. But I’m trying to portray the emotions that are behind some of those words and how that can sort of further close us off when really we’re just human beings that wanna love and be loved and find something that’s genuine. So keep that in mind. 

Christina: That is it.

Christina: That is, or those are the top five biggest mistakes that women make after divorce and some solutions there for you, some food for thought. As I mentioned as well, this is exactly what we’re going to be covering in my upcoming private group program, Divorced from Divorce without feeling like a failure.

Christina: I’m kicking things off with that free masterclass to get a peek inside of this super intimate group that I’m putting together. And again, if you’d like to join and be on the interest list, please click the link in the show notes to get on the waitlist. If any of these topics speak to you and you realize it’s time, I’ve had enough. I’m ready to be happy. I know, deep down inside, I deserve to be happy. We all do. 

Christina: You should really consider signing up for that masterclass, but I hope this was helpful. I will also be adding the transcription to the show notes and to the blog post as well. If you guys have wanted to go back and look through that, and as always, I’ll talk to you guys soon.