Welcome back to another episode of the podcast. I’m Christina. I’m really excited to bring you. Episode number 49, almost at 50. I cannot believe it’s almost been 50 podcasts that I’ve done all around divorce and healing and empowerment and transformation for women after divorce. And it’s so cool because the other day I actually went and searched the podcast ranking.

Just because I put this out, I’m a one-man show. I put this podcast out and I try not to focus on the rankings, but I also wanna make sure that I’m providing good content, that people are liking what I’m putting out, and that I’m able to really impact women throughout their journey. And so looking at ranking is also one way for me to do that.

And when I looked up the word divorced, this podcast Rebuilding You, it ranked top three on Apple and Spotify. Which it’s so crazy because I put out all of this content, and it all started from me going through my own divorce and not having an outlet, not having tools. That helped me through my journey and I thought, how many other women are going through this journey that also don’t have the support, that feel lost?

And to think that it started just like that 7, 6, 7 years ago to now being ranked one of the top three podcasts for divorce Women is just incredibly humbling and awesome. And so, that was reinvigorating. That really helped to kind of shake some things up. I’ve been making some changes behind the scenes on the podcast.

If you’re watching on video, you’re seeing that I’m coming to you from a little bit of a change of scenery. I’m really just trying to kind of lean into what feels good, what feels authentic, and to just change it up. And I wanted to remind you, use this time, to remind you that if you’re not signed up for the newsletter, it’s absolutely free.

I provide weekly support straight to your inbox, all around divorce, divorce transformation, and so you can sign up. There’s one link that could really connects. All of the different access points to things that I offer and community and things like that. And it’s linktr.ee/herheartheals. And so it’s linktr.ee/herheartheals or there’s a link in the show notes.

And then one thing that I did wanna ask is if this podcast or the episode provides any value to you. If you could leave me a review on whatever platform you’re listening on, this really, really helps. It’s the only way to boost the podcast ranking so that other women who are going through divorce can.

Find it. And so if it’s something that helped you and you want to pay it forward and share this with other divorced women and help other divorced women heal, leaving a review is one of the best ways to do that. And lastly, before I jump into this episode, I love celebrating your wins. I love connecting with you.

There’s a takeaway on this episode that it’s like an aha moment. Tag me @herheartheals on Instagram, and we can celebrate together if you have any questions or you wanna know something about something that I mentioned on here that is also the easiest way to get ahold of me. So go ahead and slide on in my DMS and let’s chat.

But other than that, I’m so excited to bring you another episode, and today is focused all around setting the tone to feel our emotions in a way that’s nurturing, soothing, and productive. And I also cover the best time it would be to lean into our emotions and when we need to nurture ourselves to really work through those feelings.

After having gone through divorce and navigating my way, it means an increase in responsibilities. We’re trying to. Do all the things and we’re so busy. We have so much going on as women after divorce because we’re trying to figure out how to like run our whole household ourselves. And so at least for me, a lot of times my feelings got pushed to the side.

My emotions just were like, I don’t got time for that because I was too busy doing, I didn’t have time to feel, I just had to go and in that moment I was just in survival mode and that’s okay. But I. I really wanted to use this platform and use a specific episode to help reel us back in and remember that our feelings are something that do need to be handled, and there is a time and a place for that.

And so that’s all that this episode is going to be around, is cultivating the right time, the right way, and the right place to feel our feelings And. I talked a little bit about this on social media as well, that divorce can be a comfort zone. And when I say this, I mean that we can get stuck in the habit of doing, because eventually it just goes on autopilot.

And some of you might be thinking like, okay, Christina divorce is not comfortable. There’s no way that it can be a comfort zone and. We can create comfort zones out of things that are unhealthy and things that don’t feel good. And when we go through divorce, we instantly have to jump into survival mode.

We have to hold things down, and that’s all we know for the foreseeable future. And unfortunately, by doing those things over and over again, it can help us get into this comfort zone, whether or not we wanna be in it or not. And so that’s another reason why this episode was so important to me was to really help us cultivate and celebrate and embrace our feelings, because that is a big part of transformation after divorce.

So let’s dive right in. The first thing that I wanted to talk about is choosing when to react and when to not react. Exploring the importance of discernment when it comes to emotional reactions is everything, and every reaction has a reaction. So the feeling is all about pausing and truly being able to get to the root of feeling.

To discern it and our minds can play tricky, tricky games that make us think that feeling means one thing, when in fact it could mean something completely different. This is called self-awareness and building emotional intelligence, and the more we can practice this, the better we can be about responding.

My therapist actually brought up a really beautiful quote that I hadn’t heard before. It was from Victor Frankl, who was a Holocaust survivor, I believe he’s passed. His quote says, between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that. Space is our power to choose our response, and in our response lies our growth and our freedom.

And so learning how to lean into this has been something that I’ve really been putting into practice. And how beautiful. I just hadn’t thought about it that way. Like so we have something that can trigger us, and then we have our reaction. But I never thought about acknowledging the moment in between.

And it can be oftentimes nanoseconds, but it can be as long as we want it to be. And I’m gonna go into that in a little bit. But there’s power in those. Moments. And so if there’s anything that you can take from this episode and implementing one thing, it’s leaning into exploring that. And I’m gonna give you some examples and some ways on how you can begin to cultivate that for yourself and what I’ve been doing to help cultivate that within my life.

So I’ll give you an example. The other day I was chatting with a friend about some of the things that I’ve been working on, some of the projects that I have going on, and she offered her advice and suggested that I do something completely different than what I was mentioning to her. And for me, it completely disrupted my thought pattern because when I come up with an idea, I.

I’m like two steps ahead to where it downloads into like a plan. And I kind of have, okay, I need to do this, I need to do this, this, this, this. And so when somebody gives me an idea that’s completely different. I like mentally boomerang, like, what? Totally just stop me dead in my tracks. And I was so thrown off and I actually felt a little salty, like.

Why wasn’t my idea good enough? And in that moment, because I had been practicing the quote, which is the space between the stimulus and the response, I decided to pause my work that I’ve been doing on that and exploring it. I knew that that was a big feeling. I could feel it rush over my entire body, and in that moment I decided to pause.

And I let her finish her thought, and I just let that conversation continue on. And as I was driving home, I used that time to go inward. And some of the questions that I asked myself was like, why was I triggered? And I just let that question marinate for a little bit. And for me, driving, I. Really helps to engage with my inner self and ask these questions.

I don’t know about you, but when I go driving, so many thoughts come to me. So anyway, I asked myself the question, why was I triggered, let it marinate, and I realized that the idea actually sounded pretty good. The idea that my friend brought to me, I was like, she’s actually kind of right. And it’s kind of brilliant what she said.

And in that moment I thought, you know, our friends can sometimes see our best qualities, things that we don’t see about ourselves because we’re too busy being our own worst critic. Our friends can sometimes bring out the best in us. They see our good qualities, and perhaps she was offering this. In my best interest because she was totally right and the more that I thought about it, the more excited I got about it.

And I was like, yeah, she’s pretty brilliant. And my feeling totally shifted. And that experience could have only occurred by practicing going inward and feeling into my feelings. And talking about the pause and having the power be that we can make that pause as long as we need to. Is that up until the car ride?

When I asked the question, I was still in the pause even though that conversation. Carried on and I ended up just having a great time with my girlfriend. We obviously, as girls do, we just carry it on and we start talking about other things and conversations just lead to other topics and things like that.

But I paused on my emotion, so that was really key to know when to pause. And the guide that I go by is if the feeling feels overwhelming. That’s when I have decided to mentally bookmark it and say, I’m gonna, I’m gonna make that a pause right there, and I’m gonna come back to it when the time and space is ready for me to explore that.

Because you can’t, not all the time are we able to, like we do, we have the luxury to feel into our feelings and really explore it in that moment. In my example, I was like out with my girlfriend. I wasn’t about to just be like, hold on. I need to go do a little self exploration. So leaning into that pause and knowing when to pause.

Has been absolutely a game changer for me. And so what it feels like in my body when something feels overwhelming is this feeling that it like, Can’t even, I was trying to think of how to describe it to you guys. Maybe you already know what that feels like for you, but for me it feels like a feeling just like flushes over my entire body.

I sometimes get hot in my cheeks or I get hot like in my hands. That’s how I know that’s like my physical trigger. That’s the sensation of like, that’s overwhelm, which equals pause. So that is the habit. And like I said, if you can take away anything and start to implement anything, it’s that. It’s knowing what it feels like in your body when you feel an emotional overwhelm, and then choosing to bookmark that for later.

And just saying, I’m just gonna pause and I’m not gonna react yet. And so that leads me to the next question or to the next thing. Gave it away. It’s asking better questions. So in the example that I gave, when it’s time to go inward, you saw how I used quiet time. Me driving as the time to go inward and get curious.

So if you’re bookmarking a feeling that you wanna explore later, I have a couple of questions that I can offer you that you can use to do that inner exploration when you’re ready. And so some of the questions are what is really causing me to feel this way? Am I looking at this from all angles? Why might this be triggering for me right now?

A very important question can also be what’s going on in my environment that could cause me to be emotionally off. Another thing I’ve been exploring when it comes to that, like things that are going on in our environment is. My menstrual cycle every single week, we are going through a new phase in our menstrual cycle, and with every phase our hormones are changing, which activates certain feelings, highs, lows, good, bad.

And so that can also cause our feelings to magnify and feel really intense, whether it’s a good feeling or or bad feeling, whatever. But our menstrual cycle is huge, and so oftentimes when I’m doing that inner exploration, I’m like, oh yeah, I’m about to start my period next week. That is probably why I feel a little bit more emo than I normally do.

Another thing to think about and to consider when you’re exploring your feelings is to think about recent interactions that we’ve had with loved ones or people that are important to us, or things that have made us feel off. It could be something like that where it’s another bookmark item that we decided to deal with later that has come out and come up.

In a interaction or cause us to feel a certain way. And so I want you to consider something like that too. It’s like, okay, what has gone on recently that has that maybe I’ve been putting off? Maybe it threw me off my game a little bit and now my emotion was triggered because it was coming out from this other thing.

Emotional overflow is what I like to call it. But it’s really through these questions that we can start to build that inner dialogue and get comfortable with hearing our own voice of truth, and more importantly, begin to trust that voice to trust ourselves, which is, you know what? This whole journey of transformation is all about being our own healer.

I. And so the more comfortable we get with trusting ourselves, the more secure we can be in loving the solitude and using that time to go inward. So that’s the next topic, and it’s embracing that solitude and really. Using our alone time. I actually used to consider myself an extrovert until I started leaning into this and using this time alone after divorce and building a connection with myself, and now I actually prefer to be alone.

After a long day, especially if I’ve had like a lot of meetings or a lot of interactions with other people, I know when I’m emotionally exhausted and I just need to beep on myself to like Reground and we’ll kind of jump into that after the next topic. But really just embracing being alone and knowing that there’s magic there.

That is the space. If you’re one of those people where you like, Can’t be at home, you don’t like sitting still, I’m totally guilty of that, but learning to love that time and say, okay, I’m gonna use this time. There’s some stuff that I’ve been bookmarking that I need to deal with, and when it comes time to dealing with the feelings, I also wanted to talk about creating a safe space, and the concept around safe space is really just a place to feel safe emotionally and being able to embrace and help us process our emotions.

When I mentioned earlier in this episode about all of the walls being up, we’re so guarded. In divorce and we’re just trying to navigate this world and after going through something that’s incredibly vulnerable, it safe space also helps us like lean into our feelings because again, we’re in that comfort zone of not wanting to feel so.

Some of the ways that I like to cultivate safe space are by having cozy blankets around and using that whenever it’s time to feel the feels proper lighting. And I don’t just mean selfie lighting either, although that’s great, but proper lighting absolutely helps to set the tone to feel safe. So if you’re in a place that has fluorescent lighting, That doesn’t necessarily cultivate feeling safe.

Maybe it is using candles as the only light that you have. Maybe you like feeling safe in a room that has a lot of bright light, or maybe it’s a room that doesn’t get a lot of light. So lighting is really important. And then the next thing is audio. So I like having things that help cultivate me feeling safe, that I can listen to.

I’m an audio learner as well, and so sometimes it’s a matter of putting on a personal development podcast or a book that I can listen to, to where all I have to do is show up and be open to feeling and then letting the audio guide me there. And I’m really excited. I’m actually going to be coming out with some audio guides to help guide you through some of your emotions, some different situations.

So definitely check the link in my bio if the guides are there, depending on the time that you’re listening to this. They’re not up right now as I’m recording it, but they will be up in the next couple days. So, Be sure to check that. Also, when it comes to safe space, it’s not just about physical space, but it’s also people that make us feel safe.

One of my girlfriends is kind of my go-to safe person because shes so nurturing and. Every single time that I talk to her, her feedback is so positive. She knows me well enough to know when I’m being vulnerable and when she needs to say certain things. So she is. Kind of like my coded safe person, whether she likes it or not.

But you know, really making sure that when you do choose to be vulnerable and when you’re sharing things with other people, it’s with people who have demonstrated that they’re safe to you. And that may be like, you know, maybe it’s the feeling that they’re not gonna go and tell everybody your business.

That’s really important. Or maybe it’s that they always know how to give you the right feedback, or maybe it’s that they nurture you. Maybe it’s all three, but making sure that you are reserving feelings and vulnerabilities with people that make you feel safe. And so lastly, I wanted to discuss the importance of rest and self care.

So, We have gone through all of the different things that we need to really lean into our feelings, and once we do that and explore and we have come to an outcome or we feel good again, I. Now it’s time to rest. And I don’t know if you’ve already explored the pause that I was referring to at the beginning of this episode and cultivating that pause between the trigger and the actual response, but that takes a lot of energy out of you.

Especially if it’s something new that you haven’t cultivated yet. And so I also wanted to discuss like the importance of acclimating after we’ve done the work, after we’ve done the, the exploration to now go out. And be able to interact with other humans to give love, to receive love, and we, that integration happens in the rest and self-care.

And so when we pair having a safe space with self-care, it’s like the best combo to help us open up, especially after divorce. And so this is your permission slip to dive into your favorite self-care. Mine always tend to change of like what my self-care flavor is, but lately self-care for me has really just been about having a fun afternoon drink.

I don’t mean alcohol cuz I don’t drink alcohol, but just like a fun drink. Whether it is like, I’ve been really into this brand, Ken Euphoric, they make these like adaptogen. Enhanced beverages, and so I like having one of those in the afternoon because I’ve also noticed that in the afternoon is the time that I tend to kind of.

Have all of my emotions hit me. And so that, that is like the perfect, pick me up. It’s like a self care. And then I go for a walk outside with my drink. And so I’ll go out with my dogs, I’ll get some fresh air, I’ll have this, you know, fun little beverage. And that is, that’s my self care. So. I really hope that these were helpful for you.

And so to wrap up, here’s what we covered. We covered why it’s important to lean into our feelings. We also covered the importance of the questions that we ask when it is time to do that self exploration. Also embracing the time that we have alone and learning to love that time and really value it. And then when it’s time to really lean into our feelings, creating a safe space.

And then lastly, the importance of self-care to reintegrate and acclimate so that we can go out in the world once we have explored our feeling and we’re ready to reemerge. And I hope this provided you with some guidance and encouraged you to really lean into this important process. And I wanna remind you, the only way out is through ladies.

We have to go through it to get to the other side, transformed and changed for our greatest good. To really feel like we are ready for the next version of ourselves. And I talked about how our feelings is something that we tend to avoid, but it’s something that’s totally crucial and necessary in order to transform.

So remember, my door is always open for questions and to check the link in the show notes for all the fun ways that I offer to help you lean into your transformation after divorce. Again, I hope this was helpful. And I’m your host, Christina. This is her heart Heal, rebuilding you, and I’ll see you next time.

Wanna learn more, I’m gonna add a link in the show notes to the website, her heart heals.com. And there you can access all of my helpful tips, the blogs on there and schedule a session with me. Are you on Instagram? I’d love to connect. You can follow me, and my handle is @herheartheals. Hope to connect with you soon.