Latest / Start Your Comeback: Rebuilding after Divorce, Empty Nest, and Loss of Spouse / Karla Peters: Comeback Through The Messy Middle

Transcript

Karla Peters: Comeback Through The Messy Middle · Start Your Comeback: Rebuilding after Divorce, Empty Nest, and Loss of Spouse

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: Is there a major life transition pinching you?
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_02: I know you may be asking, what's next?
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_02: What's my purpose?
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_02: What if?
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_02: Because I've asked those two.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to the Start Your Comeback Podcast.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Tony Thrash, a certified life coach, and I want to share the tools and practical steps to help you create a winning game plan to move into your new adventure.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_02: Carla is a violinist, creative director, and the founder of The Inspired Foundry, a digital studio for brainstorming, building, and branding your inspired ideas.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_02: She's built 150 plus brands toured internationally as a musician with her duo, The OK Factor, and guided hundreds of creatives toward their next evolution through branding, coaching, and honest conversation about what it really takes to bring ideas to life.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_02: She lives in Minnesota in a tidy 300 square foot apartment, once owned a 246-year-old violin, and is a wannabe cheesemonger who believes good bread and better questions can solve almost anything.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks so much for being here today.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just thrilled to have you.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_02: And why don't you just kind of start with telling us a little bit about who you are, what you do, and we'll jump right in.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_03: Well, thanks for having me, Tony.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_03: It's um so lovely to be on your podcast after hearing about it and helping you with the podcast art and all the things.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_03: So you and I have been working together for a few years now.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_03: Um in the realm of brand design.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_03: So I run a studio called The Inspired Foundry.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_03: And it's brand design related, but I'm pivoting into, you know, just more like idea coaching and consulting.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_03: Um, beyond that, I'm a musician.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_03: I play violin in a duo with a cellist called the OK Factor.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_03: Well, you should go listen to it if you need new music to listen to, because it's fabulous.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_03: Link it in the show notes, Tony.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we'll link it in the show notes.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely we will.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_03: What else do I do?
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_03: I'm recently divorced.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_03: So that's, you know, one of the one of the things I think we'll chat about today.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_03: And living on my own in Minneapolis, um, 34, almost 35, trying to just live my best life, you know.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_03: I love that.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_02: I and for for those of you that are new listeners, I met Carla through a mutual friend who said she will do your branding for you.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_02: And then we met and we've been working together, and we realized that we're both we're both born in October and we're literally one day apart.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um except I've got her beat by about 25 or something years.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_02: But I was counting.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_02: It's fine, doesn't matter.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_02: And so, really, what I want to kind of jump into is um your journey.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_02: And feel free to answer, feel free to say pass, whatever, on what I ask, because you know, um, but in my book, which is coming out in October, which you are the cover designer for that, which there are three things that I talk about, three stages of any major life transition.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I've been through divorce.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_02: I know you've recently, within the last two years or less, have walked through um divorce as well.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_02: And so my three phases are the shock of it and what happens in that phase.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you can't think straight.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_02: You have to have help making all the decisions because you don't have any brain cells left to navigate.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then you kind of weave out of that into the limbo stage, which means um you're kind of in this, it's not quite finished, you're not sure what's next, you you're waiting for the final so that you can move on and you're just kind of stuck, as you call it, the messy middle, which I love by the way.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_02: And then finally, you know, you get off the bench.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_02: So I am a coach, and so the bench is a big thing.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_02: So the bench is your life, and and to re-enter that and to do the things, maybe dating or whatever that looks like.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so I kind of wanted just to kind of get a feel for where you think you are currently, but also kind of explain to people what it felt like at the beginning without if you don't mind.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, no, of course.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I feel like I'm um assuming that each sort of stage looks very different for everybody depends on and they can kind of all go hand in hand as well.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_02: Like you can still be shock or limbo or limbo, yeah.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_03: You can still be I feel like I have one foot in limbo and I have one foot in re-entry.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_03: Pretty, pretty good.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_03: Um I got it's what is it?
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_03: We're recording this at the beginning of August.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so it's been a year and uh seven months, eight months.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_03: Um we decided to get divorced New Year's Eve, 2020, leading into 2024.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_03: So um it was mutual and felt like you know the right time.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but it was still kind of a shock.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_03: Like you could tell towards the end that things were like this isn't going well, and it probably needs to not continue, um, which was a very scary uh place to be.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_03: Um the the shock of it was I was the one who left as and I left the house.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_03: I moved out um pretty much immediately, at least just to like stay at a friend's house.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_03: And he was great.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_03: He said, you know, you're this is your home, you stay as long as you need to.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but I couldn't reconcile the end of a marriage and still continuing to live in that space.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_03: And so um I moved out pretty quick and needed a lot of help.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it was it was surprising how much help I needed.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_03: Um just the fog and like the I can't, I can't even see to tomorrow, you know, um trying to continue to live your life and be a functional human being while also reconciling the end of your marriage and like the logistics involved in that plus the emotions of it all.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_03: Like it's a lot.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_03: I was unprepared as much as I had um maybe fantasized over the last six months of my marriage of like what it would look like if I actually left.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_03: Um that was it was more like get a storage unit and go travel Europe.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I didn't I didn't really think about what it would feel like to walk out of my house and leave my house and leave my dogs and leave what I, you know, considered to be my family.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_03: Um so the limbo was horrible.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_03: It was it was kind of a weird timing too.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_03: It was January, it was the middle of winter, it was um like not a great there wasn't a lot going on.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_03: Um so I was grateful in that like I didn't have a ton of work.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_03: Um my, you know, I stayed with a friend for three months.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_03: Um I went on a tour in the middle of that, and that was odd.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_03: The tour I had my first panic attack ever on tour.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_03: Um it happened a couple of times, just like these, like I had never had a panic attack before, and it was uh I was waiting to hear back from the courts.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_03: I realized that um like my paperwork had been accepted because I filed for divorce the day that I left for tour.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_03: Um and like a few days in, you know, I was told that well, you'd get in a confirmation email that they like received it.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_03: And I had never done anything with the courts.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_03: I've never been in trouble with the law.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_03: So like just having to work with the government on something so personal felt like uh like I was in trouble.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_03: So it was like this this feeling of like, oh my, like I was terrified that I had done something wrong on the paperwork, or like, you know, anyway.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_03: So we get to um a coffee place before a show, and I can feel that something's not right.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_03: Um, we get to the show and it's at like a an assisted living home, set up our stuff and like we're sound checking, and um I sit down and I like I start crying and I can't stop.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_03: And the guys are like, Well, this is we're on tour with our Swedish friends, five guys from Sweden who are lovely human beings, but a little stunted as far as like what to do when someone's having an emotional crisis in a foreign country, you know, and totally fair.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_03: Like, I wouldn't know what to do either.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_03: Well, yeah, no, it's it's kind of funny in retrospect.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but so I you know, I start crying and I can't stop.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_03: And Joel, one of our our musicians, um, he's like, you know, patting me on the back and I'm like, I can't stop this, I don't know what it is.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_03: So he finds Olivia and she comes over and um I duo partner, Olivia.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_03: Um she's, you know, like hands me some water and tries to just tell me that, you know, she's like, you're safe.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_03: You're everything's like you're right here, everything's okay.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_03: Because she can tell, like, if there's no way for me to stop it, then um, then she knows that there's nothing she can do except remind me that everything's okay.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_03: So I get through that, I play most of the gig, and I have to leave before the last tune because I could feel something else coming on again.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_03: So I just go lay on the floor in like, I don't know, somebody's office.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_03: And um later that night we had, you know, we were having dinner together, and I'm like, I am really sorry.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_03: And they're like, of course, so wonderful, saying, Oh my gosh, please, like, you never need to apologize for that.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_03: Um, we're here for you.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_03: And it was after that time that I started to feel like these guys were such a safe space and such a happy, happy place for me.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_03: And tour has always been that way, but it caused some problems in my marriage.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_03: Like being gone on tour with five guys was not something that my husband was super fond of.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_03: Um so in that moment of that tour, in the first month of being divorced, having safe spaces and safe environments was key for me.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_03: Just like putting myself in every possible situation where I knew that the people I was with would take care of me no matter what.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_03: Well, it just looked like um going on tour, even though I had just filed for divorce, like I could have stayed home staying with my friends Dan and Taylor for as long as possible, um, being with Olivia more than you know, we have ever been, just so that I wasn't alone.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_03: Um and the the shock probably lasted for like six months, six to seven months, I think.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_03: Um by that point, I know it's yeah.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: Will you just explain real quick?
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, sorry to interrupt.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: I hate that.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_02: Will you explain how important it was for the community you had around you to be around you at that moment?
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_02: Because there are a lot of people who are walking through something very similar and have no one.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I I'm a very big advocate because I have that support system.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_02: Would you just kind of share that in a couple of sentences or so?
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I don't know how I would have gotten through those early days without people around me who knew me and cared about me and understood the situation.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_03: Um I had, I was very lucky, very privileged to have family who understood immediately and had no questions.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_03: It was whatever you need, you know, they were right there.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_03: Um invaluable, and I can't, I have tried to express my gratitude to all of these people um many times.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_03: But it just there's there's almost no way to for me anyway to articulate um there are no words.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_02: All the good words have been used as far that that's how I feel because yeah they've been my support now for 11 years, even longer before.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's just it's there and it's n it's unwavering, which is a wonderful feeling to have, isn't it?
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that just feeling of being held.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: No matter what.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: And no matter what.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 13:40
  unknown: Yeah.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_02: So now you were saying before I interrupted about the shock, and then, you know, and then you were Yeah.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I moved into my own place, a little tiny studio apartment um that I love in March.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_03: So I lived in my friend's basement for a few months and then um got my own place.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_03: And I think um I needed to be alone.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_03: Uh very much I needed to be alone.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_03: I needed to have my own space.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_03: I needed to, like, I didn't want a roommate.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't, you know, if I could afford it, I didn't want to have to deal with anybody else in the middle of feeling all of my feelings.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_03: Um, because for so long I hadn't, you know, I had I was in the kind of marriage that was like his feelings were priority, and I was generally emotionally incorrect.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_03: And so um there was just not a lot of room for me to have feelings.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_03: So it was important to me, even in my haze and fog of like understanding once we get through this like foggy haze, there's gonna be a lot of stuff that we need to feel and think through, and we need we need to be alone in order to do that.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_03: And that's proved to be true.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_03: Um we had our divorce was quick, like the state of Minnesota uncontested, no kids.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_03: I was divorced in three weeks.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_03: You know, like it did not take very long.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 15:03
  unknown: Yeah.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_03: It was insane.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_03: So I filed for divorce like on the 18th of January.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_03: It was signed by the judge and a signed deal delivered February 2nd, um, which meant that, you know, we didn't have a ton of time to think about all of the other things like the house and the dogs.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_03: And we were, you know, in this sort of limbo period experimenting with um custody of the dogs and sharing them.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_03: And it meant seeing him once a week, once every two weeks to trade um, you know, the dogs being at the house versus the dogs being with me at the apartment.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_03: And um I we did that until June of this year before I had to.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_03: It's like, okay, I can't, I can't I can't continue to do this.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_03: And there were some things that happened along the way, like we had to re, we were gonna refinance the mortgage at some point to get me off the house.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_03: And um, but he neglected to tell me that he had a roommate of the female persuasion, and um just uh didn't tell me that that was happening, and it was happening for months, and I'd had to find out on my own.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_03: And so at that point, it was like we can do the refinance now, and we're gonna make this a priority now.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_03: Um, that was like October.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I think she moved in in like May or June or something, and he didn't tell me.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_03: So uh that, you know, kind of like it felt like I was back to the beginning a little bit, back to square one as far as feeling my feelings and um being in shock again.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_03: Um and then it wasn't until December I started to name like some of the things that had actually happened in my marriage as uh abuse.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_03: Um I I was constantly making excuses for him, verbal, you know, stuff, emotional manipulation, those kinds of things, and um had never named it as abuse, but um was finally able to in December.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_03: So that was a little bit more of a a shock.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_03: Do you feel like it's true that like even like the the things aren't aren't linear, right?
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_03: And you can you can experience but you just kind of spiral through them, yeah.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely, because here's the thing that like you just said, there's a trigger that will, you know, your dogs.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_02: That that's a trigger finding out there's a roommate.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_02: But here's what I'm gonna say about that.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_02: Like, good for you for standing your ground and going, uh, we're doing it now.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm out.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_02: No, no, no.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_02: Seriously, yes, be it because I feel like in the midst of all three phases, there's this big elephant in the room called grief.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_02: And grief is in every single part of every single one of those because it's new, it's fearful, we don't know what it's going to look like.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_02: We can plan, but we don't know.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_02: And I just you just don't know how similar our stories are at all.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_02: That's why you saw me to the tears streaming down my face because I was like, oh my gosh, maybe she got out early.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I mean, you uh we can talk about that off.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but because that's a whole other podcast episode.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um but yes, those things, and then do do you mind just sharing about like therapy and and and the role that that has played, if at all?
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I um you don't have to be specific, just what no, it's okay.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_03: I've I've been in therapy since like week two of getting divorced.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_03: Um previous to that, we had a couples therapist, and um at some point, I'm pretty sure, like in one-on-ones, he was like, You're gonna have to look at this very differently and decide if if you want to meet him where he's at, because he was coming from like a my ex was coming, like has a trauma background, and I just didn't understand that and couldn't meet him in it.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_03: And so it made things, you know, tricky and and difficult and um made it tricky for him to like he wouldn't deal with it either.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_03: So therapy for me has always been um deal with the problems at hand and try to like survive through them.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_03: And going to therapy in the aftermath of something and not having to go back and like fix something in my relationship was very different.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I think I did better help because I needed something, somebody immediately in those first few weeks, and I didn't get a great match, and so I eventually found somebody locally um who I saw through like uh March of this year, I think.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_03: And then she had to go on maternity leave, so I had to find somebody new, but it turned out to be a good thing.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_03: Um it was interesting to go through like nine months with one therapist who knew me pretty well at that point.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_03: I've been seeing her regularly, and then to have to start over with somebody fresh, because at that point you're in a different place, you know, and like the narratives you have around your experience are a little bit different.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_03: And so the thing you bring to a new relationship with a therapist was um was interesting to me uh how much more I was able to leave on the table at that point with her.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_03: So I've been seeing her weekly since like April or March.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_03: Well, part of it was insurance.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_03: Like I think it was uh 2024, I didn't have great insurance.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_03: And so it cost me out of pocket, you know,$150 every time to go.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_03: And so I would only go once a month.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_03: So I made it a priority when I could switch that I could have more regular support that way.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_02: It's just so important.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_02: I and I I tell every person that I talk to, therapy saved my life.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_02: Like it literally, I did not know how bad I was just from all of the trauma of everything.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_02: And I, you know, I I have my therapist on speed dial and I I send people to him all the time.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_02: And he's like, Tony, I'm full.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, I don't care.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_02: I need you to see these people.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_02: And he so he dumb out he works his magic and gets him in because it's been 11 years, but I still like to I still like to get a feel for where I am, make sure I'm not losing my mind, kind of thing.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, he's I just let me ask you something.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_03: As a person who is, you know, we're in limbo and re-entry.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_03: We're still we're still understanding all of the shit, excuse my French, that happened in in my marriage and and what it did to my brain.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_03: Eleven years later, do you still find that you fall into those same patterns or the same voices in your head or like the like?
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, that is a great question.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_02: Give me some help here.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_02: I'll I'll give you some help.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_02: And and I don't know if it's gonna be much help, but here we go.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_02: So obviously uh we have children together.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_02: Obviously, we have a grandson together, and so I I still have to talk and see him on a regular basis, which is usually maybe four times a year.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_02: He doesn't live local, but we had a conversation.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_02: I can't believe I'm saying this on air, but we have a conversation in June.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_02: He called to have a serious conversation with me.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_02: He goes, You never called to check on me.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_02: And I say, I said, no, I don't.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_02: And he goes, Why is that?
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_02: Because he calls regularly, like he really does call to see how everything's going.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_02: And I just said, I don't know what state of mind you're going to be in.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I am not willing to let that boundary go because it sends me into trauma again.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I can't do that, so I'm not going to.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_02: And I tried to be as kind about it as I could.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_02: And the thing that I think the thing that gets me in all of that, what you just asked, is how it affects my my boys, my sons.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_02: And that struggle of our mom and dad okay being together in the same room.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_02: Of course we are.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_02: Like we're going to be.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_02: Whether we well, however, we're going to be okay because it's our kids, right?
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_02: And but I'm anxious, you know, I'm like, is something going to happen?
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_02: It it's it's this ongoing.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_02: And then I have to, when it's over, I have to step aside and just I have to I just have to regroup because I want pins and needles.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_02: And I I don't enjoy that.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_02: And um, but it is it is where we are.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_02: And so yeah, I mean it it's it's hard still.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean, I I'm grateful that you don't have kids.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_02: I I'm sorry that I'm sorry about your dogs, because those are like your kids.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_02: That that's awful.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_02: But it just I I'm I'm grateful that you don't have kids yet.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_02: I really am.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_03: Tony, I mean, conversations in June, I had the same, well, different one, but it was like uh I I had my dogs for a couple of days, and we don't talk on the phone, like we text or we email about stuff, but I never call him ever because his voice in my ear, that close to my being, is like it's too much now.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_03: I had to call him because I had an issue with one of our dogs.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_03: And so um after that phone call, he called me back.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_03: Like, I don't know, it was like I had to talk to him twice in the span of a half hour.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_03: And and I was like, I can't do this for 10 years.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_03: I can't do this for the rest of the life of my dogs.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_03: Like, I I I can't be just on a whim, available to hear his voice and be sent, just absolutely sent, not in a good way, you know, like um I did not know how much that was still going to affect me.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_03: And I would love to be, you know, the cool girl who can totally handle it and be friends, like whatever.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_03: It's the dogs are the most important thing.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_03: Like, but they're not they're not children.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_03: I have no real legal obligation to them the same way you do with kids.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_03: And so and and the thing is yeah, just yeah, had to I had to make the choice to let that go.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_02: And that and the and the thing is for me, like he's their dad.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_02: Like he's their dad.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_02: And I tried very hard not to I tried very hard not to lean them in any direction.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_02: I asked them how their dad's doing on a regular basis, because he's their dad.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_02: He's always going to be their dad, regardless of what happened between us, he's their dad, you know?
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_02: And so I tr I try very hard to be sensitive to that.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_02: And sometimes I do a really great job and sometimes I took at it.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_02: So there's that.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_02: So Yeah.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_03: I am I'm grateful I don't have to potentially I mean, but this week even, I'm having a grief week this week because he texted me pictures of our dogs.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_03: And I thought we were in like a a no contact kind of thing, but maybe I wasn't clear enough about that.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_03: He sent me pictures of the dogs twice because they got groomed and they're so beautiful.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_03: And in the moment it was like, oh, my dogs.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_03: And then I didn't, I couldn't understand why I just my emotional, you know, landscape kept devolving over the course of the week.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_03: And it's like, well, it's probably because he sent you pictures and you had to hear from him.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 27:51
  unknown: Yeah.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I mean, I I had I got a dog.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_02: I'd been divorced not quite a year, and I got a dog and um loved my dog.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_02: He's big old order collie mix, 70 pounds.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_02: We walked all the time, and I lost him last June, a year ago.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um, he had a big old mass wrapped around his esophagus, and I was devastated because I had to put him down.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I uh the the whole year was just a year of grief for me all over again because I lost my I lost my buddy.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_02: I lost the the person, if you will, that I came home to every day, you know?
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_02: And so I I understand that it's a it's extremely difficult.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_02: It was it was a hard thing.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_02: So what so how do you feel other than your brief week?
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_02: Like so you you said you have one foot in limbo and one foot in re-entry.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_02: Tell me tell me a little bit about that and then yeah.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_03: I think um my limbo is is still reconciling with the fact that this is gonna take longer than I think it's going to.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_03: Like it's okay.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_03: It's a divorce is different than a breakup.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_03: You know what I mean?
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_03: Like I don't know, you get sad, you find somebody new, whatever.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_03: Divorce for me has been like you made a commitment and you you made a legal commitment and you broke it and you decided to end it.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_03: And so, like, sitting with the guilt of that and the shame of that, and that those are two things that I have not quite touched in therapy yet.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_03: Like, we're starting to get there.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_03: But it was more about therapy was you know, immediate like deal with the situations and the circumstances, and then.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_03: start to get into the emotions of it.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_03: And um both of my therapists over the last year would tell you that she she asks almost every session, how long is this gonna take?
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_03: Because there's no there's no end date.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_03: There's no rule book, playbook for how how long you're gonna be feeling this way.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_03: And I feel shame that I still feel grief over this even a year and a half later, which feels to me like a really long time.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_03: Um so that's that feels like limbo to me still.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_03: And then re-entry like uh I I'm not actively dating.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_03: I think I'm open to the idea, but I'm working out some things in my own brain about like dating makes me feel desperate.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_03: You know, like I don't want to have to deal with somebody or manage somebody else's emotions.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_03: Like I still have kind of messed up views around what it means to be in like a romantic relationship with somebody.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_03: So I don't want to bring that into anything.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_03: I'm aware of it and like trying to work through it.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_03: But I mean just like you know feeling like I'm living my own life instead of navigating the aftermath of divorce that feels like re-entry to me.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_02: It absolutely because if you just said at the beginning that you are pivoting from rebranding why don't you kind of I mean because that's re-entry that's that's a part of of what you're walking through.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_03: So maybe share a little bit about that and then Yeah yeah um we uh for so long the Inspired Foundry my creative studio was dedicated to brand design graphic design and then and you know brand design for logos and colors and fonts and all those kinds of things um because it was a skill set that I could I could utilize and I could get paid for.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_03: I think in going through a divorce and dealing with grief, um it it I don't even know how to articulate it clearly, but something about like how it showed me what I was no longer willing to do or like um what I no longer wanted to spend my time doing.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_03: And that if I had to make it on my own, I was gonna make it on my own in a way that I really felt amazing about.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_03: So it gave me some sort of clarity.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah in a yes in like a rock bottom kind of way but yeah.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_03: Um the first few months of this year I had no clients I had no design clients coming in.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_03: I was marketing a little bit but not enough.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_03: I started doing some in-person marketing and that helped a lot.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_03: But even that was clarifying in terms of when you're meeting a bunch of new people and telling them what you do day in and day out and you're not excited about it and like you start asking them questions.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_03: Like I would want to ask people questions like what's your big dream?
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_03: And then I would be like I have to relate this to branding somehow and like tell them you know what they need in terms of design and how I can support them.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_03: When I would rather just have conversations about what their dreams look like and and where they are in in process of bringing them to life.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_03: And so that was clarifying for me too in putting myself out there again in sort of an entrepreneurial sense like meeting people, networking, kind of um forcing myself as the introverted person that I am to be in public spaces with people and small talk.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_03: Like just not fun.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_03: But I thought if I ever wanted to date again this is like a a real easy way to kind of um test the waters of meeting people because for so long I didn't my business was online for so many years and so I didn't really need to network.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_03: And then when my you know referrals dried up or seemed like they did then except for you Tony you're always sending me great people um I you know I needed some other strategy.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_02: I believe in you it's very kind of you I believe in you too it's mutual mutual believing I know it's it's a good place to be well um you have any last thoughts on where you are and where you want to be what is your big dream well it's really interesting.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_03: I mean in the first maybe year of getting divorced I couldn't look at the future at all.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_03: Like future dreaming just was not available to me.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_03: It was survival mode it was you know um trying to listen to myself over what the you know the things I have been told in my marriage trying to untangle all of those things.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_03: And now I finally kind of feel like I I'm starting to think about next summer.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_03: Like I want to make plans for next summer already.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_03: And um I have always held kind of a a long term dream of the inspired foundry becoming a physical space like 30 acres of land, rolling hills, big beautiful retreat barn center, tiny houses on the property come stay with me and work on your inspired idea.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_03: I'm there.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_03: So right?
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah I am too I would love that um and like when when ChatGPT and AI started coming out the first thing I did was give me some you know like visual images of this place that I'm describing.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_03: So I had a vision in my head.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_03: Um and those were the things that like I had done that just before I got divorced and so holding on to that future vision even though I I could just I could see it visually in front of me, I couldn't necessarily feel it.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_03: I'm starting to feel it again.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_03: I'm starting to feel like that is a pull that is still there that I still want.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_03: And part of grief for me was also identifying whether the things that I felt in my marriage about my dreams were trying to decide if they were coping mechanisms for dealing with my everyday life or if that was actually who I was.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_03: So I had to go through a period of like I don't know if I really want this or if this was just me disassociating from my everyday life.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_03: But I think I've come around back to the point that like no those those were true.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_03: That was that was really who I am and what I want um which feels good to know that uh that I didn't lose that in the process of dealing with grief that you don't lose yourself just because you're grieving.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_03: It's just you have to go through something you have to you have to wade through it in order to figure out what's true.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um that is correct yeah so I don't there's there's no tidy bow on any of this Tony it's just no sucks there's not it does well you know I I can't thank you enough for being here today like hopefully my listeners will rally around and maybe you'll get some new clients out of it we'll be sure and uh we'll love that be sure and tell us where tell us where you're located where they can find you on all social media platforms uh website and then I'll be sure to plug all of that in the show notes.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah um it's just the inspiredfoundry.com I'm the inspired foundry on Instagram um and I talk about divorce a little bit there a little bit about grief um I try to keep it inspiring but I also know that the messy middle is no matter whether that's like a life messy middle or a project messy middle it's very real and doesn't get talked about enough so I try to um dive into that um but I've got you know like the studio at the Inspired Foundry for um kind of creative community around bringing your ideas to life artist residencies for more focused project support and um brand design packages for visual identities that kind of thing um and then music you know the okay factor on Instagram and Facebook and the internet so and Spotify is yes and and it's great uh it's great writing music just FYI yeah thank you Tony for all your support on all the things that I do I am grateful for our collaboration and our friendship and your support.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's so lackwise I I get so excited to tell people about you and I I appreciate all the things that you do for me because I don't know how to do them.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_02: This is why you get on get to do them because I have it I have the ideas and I can't I know what I want most of the time and then you curate it and make it all lovely and outstanding and I I'm just I'm eternally grateful for you.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_02: You're an awesome and thanks again for being here.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah thank you for having me hey thanks for listening I don't take it for granted that you're here you didn't listen by mistake.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_02: If you want to reach out you can DM me on Instagram at Tony Thrash.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_02: Until next week remember there's still time left on the clock let's get you off the bench to start your comeback.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_02: I want to give a special shout out to Country Club for the original music.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_02: You can find them on Instagram at country club