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Life After Divorce: No Recipe Required · Reflect Reclaim & Liberate - with Sallyanne Hartnell

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Reflect, Reclaim and Liberate, a podcast covering all things relationships, separation and divorce.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: How to create healthy, happy, fulfilling relationships without sacrificing any part of yourself.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Supporting anyone feeling challenged in their relationship or marriage.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: These are confidential conversations for you if you're navigating separation, divorce or reorganising life afterwards.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Decide whether to stay or leave a relationship or marriage, divorce with less drama, and consciously choose what's next for you.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which this podcast is recorded, the Warrentry people of the Kulin Nation, and pay my respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: I acknowledge them as the original storytellers of this land.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, hello, and welcome to this week's episode of Reflect, Reclaim and Liberate entitled Life After Divorce.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: My daughter Eva recently gave me a blank notebook, and along with it, she handed me a list of her favourite meals.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: The meals that I've cooked for our family over the years of her life, the meals that her grandmother had cooked for her or for us, and she asked me to write those recipes out by hand.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember I remember smiling, having a little chuckle to myself, and then immediately feeling a little bit stuck because for many of those meals that she loves the most, there actually isn't really a firm recipe.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: There's no recorded recipe and not one that I follow exactly.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: Even the recipes handed down from my mum, which were handed down for her mum from her mum often, or from my paternal grandmother, they're not necessarily written down with precise lists of ingredients, quantities, and cooking methods.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: They're often made from what's in the fridge, from what I remember, and from what when I'm cooking, from what feels right in the moment.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: And over time, the original versions of those recipes, even the ones handed down, have been tweaked and adapted and adjusted.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes because I've learned something new, sometimes because someone in our family doesn't eat a particular or can't eat a particular ingredient, sometimes simply because I'd open the cupboard or the fridge and a particular ingredient was missing, and sometimes just because I felt like doing it differently, that I could do it better, that I could tweak it and adjust it and improve it, right?
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I've thought about that a lot since because I think divorce does something very similar.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: So many of us find ourselves standing in front of or holding in our hands that same kind of blank notebook, right?
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: Divorce has this way of handing you a blank page, a blank notebook, and quietly asking, so what now?
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: What's next?
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: But life after divorce does not come with a clear set of instructions.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: There's no one size fits all recipe, and yet so many of us feel the pressure to find one.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: We look around and we think everyone else in this situation knows what they're doing.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: We read the books, we listen to the podcasts, and yes, I'm aware of that irony here.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um we take in all the well-meaning advice, and we still ask ourselves things like, why don't I feel like I get this?
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: Why don't I feel clearer yet?
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: Why am I still here wherever here is?
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: And why does everyone else seem like they are further along?
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: Why does everyone else seem to get the steps, get the recipe, and I don't get it?
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: There's this unspoken belief that there is a right way to do this, there is a right way to rebuild your life, there is a correct set out order, a formula, a recipe.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: And if you haven't cracked it, if you haven't cracked it yet, it can feel like you are doing something wrong, like you're behind, like everyone else knows the story, everyone else has that secret ingredient or the answer that you can't find.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: But here's what I want you to know there was never a single recipe to begin with, not before divorce, and certainly not after.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: When I cook, I don't start with strict instructions, which is what made it so difficult for me to write those recipes down for Eva.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: I often start with what's available to me, what's in the fridge, what I already have, what needs using up, even what's missing.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's something else.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's what I intuitively know I want and need, what I feel like, what I feel like eating, what would actually nourish me in that moment, and not just what I should make, right?
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: And rebuilding a life after divorce is a little bit like that.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: You don't actually begin with everything on the list, everything on the recipe list.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: You don't begin with endless options or a full list of ingredients.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: You begin with reality, you begin with where you are, you begin with what is available to you, your emotional energy, your financial situation, your capacity, your hope, your grief, your exhaustion, your skills, your knowledge, your intuition, right?
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: You work with what's in front of you, not actually what you wish you had, but you also work with what's in your head, what's available to you, what you know, your intuition, your memory, and your desire to create something, something different for yourself.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes an ingredient that you relied on is gone, it's not available to you anymore.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: You're also dealing with all the things grief, loss, change, instability, and things that were once available to you to handle all of that might not be available to you anymore.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes something new, some new ingredient shows up unexpectedly, and instead of following a set of instructions, you begin to feel, you begin to feel your way forward, you trust what you know, and you intuitively know what works already.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: You trust that too, and you also trust that however it turns out, even if it's not exactly what you thought it might look like or taste like or be like, you trust that the result will be okay.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: You make little adjustments along the way, you pause, you notice, you trust your instincts and your knowing a little more each time.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: And you test and you taste as you go.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, learning to trust yourself again, learning that you might not have all the things, all the ingredients, all the answers immediately, but that you can work them out as you go along.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: You can substitute, you can add in new flavors or new ingredients, new bits, new pieces, new components of a life.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: You will learn to adjust when something's missing, and you will find a new thing to fit into that space.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes, sometimes you realize or you might discover that you don't actually need everything that you used to have or that you thought you did, everything that this so-called recipe asks for.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: You might not need all those things anymore.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: And you'll probably realize that the meal or the life that you create can still be nourishing, satisfying, even delicious, even if it's different from what you expected, right?
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: And this is often where my work begins, my work with clients begin.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: And it's the framework that I return to again and again and again, right?
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: Reflect, reclaim, liberate.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: Reflection comes first, and it often feels the hardest.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: And part of the reflection here is reflecting on which parts of which parts of this recipe, which part, which ingredients, which components do I actually need, want, and which can I let go of?
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: Reflection is the pause, and it's the moment that it's the moment you let go of having to need the recipe, right?
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's when you stop rushing to fix things or fix your life, and when you actually allow yourself to notice the truth.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: What happened, what happened in this relationship, what happened, what you've been carrying, maybe what no longer fits or what you no longer need.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: You reflect and notice what's real versus the story that you're telling yourself or the story you've been conditioned to believe in.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: Reflection is about gentle, honest, self-compassion.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's about letting yourself feel without needing immediate answers, without needing to know the whole recipe, right?
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's about bringing your knowing, allowing it your knowing to rise, bringing it to the forefront, and allowing yourself to really see what components of life are important to you, what it is you really want and need to see.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: Then comes reclaiming, reclamation, and this is where you begin to sift through and take pieces of your back of yourself back, small pieces of yourself, your preferences, your voice, your boundaries, your needs.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: You reclaim your right to choose, to be selective, your right to perhaps change your mind, your right to create a life that fits not only who you are now, but also who you are expanding into.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: Not who you were or who you thought you had to be or who you were asked or required to be, but who you are now and who you're expanding into.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: And over time, this leads to liberation.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: Not freedom from the pain or the grief or the challenges that come with this kind of change, but freedom from the idea that there's a right way, there's a formula, there's a recipe, that there's a right way to move through and to do this.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: Freedom from following a set of rules or a recipe that is somebody else's design.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: Liberation from the shoulds, from the timelines, from the belief that you're behind, liberation from stories, conditioning, expectations, yours and everyone else's.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: And this is when you really can begin to trust that even with unfamiliar ingredients, even with out a clear recipe, something nourishing, sustaining, something rich and tasty and joyful, something truly delicious can still be made.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: And that the whole can actually become something more beautiful than those individual pieces ever suggested.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you're listening to this and you're in that in-between space, not quite who you were, not yet who you're becoming, and it feels a bit like your life is this jumble of ingredients that don't quite fit together, that don't yet make sense, that don't yet make a whole cohesive entire meal.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: Don't feel that you're failing to cook up the right version here.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: Don't feel like you're failing to mix those ingredients well and make a cohesive, authentic life.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: You're not.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: You're not failing.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's that you're experimenting, you're learning, you're exploring, you're crafting, you're building, you're inventing.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: You are creating.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: And creation is messy, it's intuitive, it requires patience and self-compassion because creating means that you will probably make mistakes.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: You'll put things together that don't work, you'll look at them again and think, not quite sure here, let's try again.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: So creation takes repetition, a few tries, before it starts to feel or taste right.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's just like cooking without a recipe.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe the question to ask isn't what should my life look like now?
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: But rather what's already here?
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: What do I already have and know?
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: What ingredients do I have already that I can work with today and into the future?
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: Are there ingredients missing that I can let go of, or do I need to recreate them, find different replacements for them, new things to slot in to those gaps?
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: What here needs a little bit of adjustment.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: There may not be an exact recipe for life after divorce that's laid out for you to follow step by step.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe there actually doesn't need to be.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: The work, the choices, the decisions, the life you're making, the life you're creating is yours.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: There is no recipe except the one that you choose, that you create, that makes this life and this future yours.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: As always, thank you for being here.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: Until next week, bye for now.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Sally Ann Hartnell, divorce coach and strategist, and you've been listening to Reflect, Reclaim, and Liberate.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: You can follow me on Instagram at Reflect Coaching, and if you can think of anyone who would love or benefit from listening to this episode, please share it with them.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'd also be so grateful if you would follow and review the podcast so we can get it in the ears of a whole lot more people just like you who are ready to reclaim and liberate themselves in life and love.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you'll join me next week for another episode of Reflect, Reclaim and Liberate.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: Until then