Becoming You Again

From Reacting to Responding: Building Resilience After Divorce

• Karin Nelson • Episode 233

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The emotional rollercoaster of divorce can leave us feeling like we're constantly in survival mode, reacting to every text, comment, or situation with immediate emotion rather than thoughtful response. This heightened state keeps us stuck in cycles that prevent healing and forward movement.
 
 I’m talking about this common struggle by exploring the difference between being consumed by emotions and being healthily connected to them. When we're constantly reacting from a place of anger, fear, or hurt, our emotions are actually running the show while we watch helplessly from the passenger seat.
 
 When our nervous system stays heightened, our prefrontal cortex (the brain's decision-making part) becomes less flexible. This creates the effect of choices that may not be aligned with what’s best and right for you, increased stress, and more negative emotions.
 
 The solution is in creating space between stimulus and response. By validating our feelings without immediately acting on them, we gain the power to choose how we respond. I’ll offer practical guidance on shifting from emotional survival to emotional resilience through simple but powerful practice in this episode. 


 This practice transforms not only our divorce experience but ripples through every relationship in our lives. As we model emotional regulation, we become powerful architects of our future rather than reactive victims of our circumstances.
 
 Ready to stop letting your emotions drive your decisions? This episode provides the roadmap to build emotional resilience that will serve you long after your divorce is finalized. 

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Karin Nelson:

This is Becoming you Again, the podcast helping you heal from your divorce and deal with the mental and emotional challenges you face so you can get on living the best of the rest of your life. I'm your host, karin Nelson, and you are listening to episode number 233. Welcome to Becoming you Again, the podcast where you learn to step into your power as a woman in this world, where you learn to reconnect to your wholeness, your integrity, and bring into alignment your brain, your integrity, and bring into alignment your brain, your body and your intuition after divorce. This is the podcast where you learn to trust yourself again and move forward toward a life that you truly want. You are listening to Becoming you Again and I am your host, karin Nelson. Welcome back to the podcast. My lovely, lovely ladies, I love you so much. I am always so happy that you're here.

Karin Nelson:

Things have been a little like emotional rollercoaster-y this week. There's been a lot of things happening in the world that I've been feeling a lot of empathy and compassion for. There's things that have been happening in my own life where I've just been having like some good days, some bad days, some hard days, some great days, some challenging days, some not so challenging days I've been really feeling the emotional roller coaster and I have been really feeling connected to my clients and to all of you out there who are in it, who are in your divorce, who are going through the ups and downs day to day. I want you to know I still feel it. I still have good days, I still have bad days. I still have days where I'm just like I just want to go lay in bed and do nothing, because all I want to do is cry and forget about the world. I have days like that still. Just because I am through my divorce nine years now and I'm thriving doesn't mean that I still don't feel emotions. I'm just like you. I'm a human and we feel emotions and sometimes they feel more challenging and more present than others. And I want you to know that I love you and I'm with you and nothing has gone wrong when we feel negative emotion. I will repeat that till the day I die, because I want you to really embrace that idea that nothing has gone wrong when we feel negative emotion. We just allow ourselves to feel it and that's kind of like what I'm going to be talking about.

Karin Nelson:

A lot today in this episode is learning how to create that emotional resilience that you're looking for as you feel the ups and downs and the ebbs and flows of negative emotion as you go through your divorce. And I know I talk about emotions a lot, but it's really important because I think if everybody knew what to do with their emotions and how to process through their emotions the scary ones, the hard ones, the ones that were like I don't want to feel that, I don't want to feel sad, I don't want to feel angry, I don't want to feel that anymore. If we knew what to do with them, they wouldn't be so scary and we wouldn't have to run away from them or react to them or avoid them or pretend like they're so bad that we can't go on with our lives. And if we knew how to do that, the world I feel like would be coming from a much more healed, loving, embracive place. Embracive I don't even know if that's a word, but I said it, so it's a word. Today, in this podcast by embracive, I mean like we're not going to be so caustic and mean to each other because we understand people are going through stuff.

Karin Nelson:

Okay, so let's jump into what I'm going to be talking about today. When we are feeling a lot of negative emotion, very often we get stuck in this place that I'm going to call emotional survival mode. And you've heard me talk about this idea of when our nervous system is heightened. Our prefrontal cortex, that smart part of our brain, and all parts of our brain are smart, but there's a smarter part, the prefrontal cortex. That really is the problem solving and the decision making and the intentionality. That part of our brain kind of goes offline a little bit when we are in survival mode, when our amygdala is kicking in. And something that I see over and over and over again with my clients and with women who talk to me about what they're going through when they go through their divorce, is that women are almost constantly living in emotional survival mode while they're going through their divorce.

Karin Nelson:

And if you've been in this place, you know what I'm talking about. It's where you are constantly reacting to everything around you, everything that is happening. You're reacting to it. So, for example, like your ex sends you a text and you immediately feel anxiety number one, but then you immediately fire back your answer, or your lawyer calls you with an update and you spiral into this worst case scenario, thinking or maybe your kids are complaining about whatever, like having to go back and forth or not wanting to do their homework, or not wanting to clean their room or whatever kids complain about, because they do it a lot. Right, it's okay, they're kids, we get it. But in those moments when we feel like our nervous system is heightened at a constant pace, maybe you completely shut down or maybe you explode at them with way more emotion than what the situation calls for right reaction. It keeps us stuck in this survival mode because, instead of allowing us to actually be able to heal and move forward in our lives in a healthy way, what we're doing is we are living from emotional outburst to emotional outburst. We are in survival mode, and it is detrimental to us being able to heal and move forward, which is what we truly want after we go through a divorce.

Karin Nelson:

Right Now, I hear you out there. You might be saying something like um, karen, excuse me, what do you mean? I am totally in touch with my emotions. It's literally all I feel all the time. I am constantly sad and crying, or I am constantly frustrated with where my life is, every single day, or I am constantly angry and I'm tired of feeling that and I'm going to push back on you a little bit because, yes, I don't want to take away or invalidate what you are feeling. What you are feeling is yours and it is real. However, that is not what I mean by being in touch with your emotions in a healthy way. That is not what I mean by understanding what is happening inside of you and being able to process through your emotions.

Karin Nelson:

But when I say that you are probably out of touch with your emotions, what I mean is you are living from reaction to reaction to reaction of your emotions, Instead of allowing yourself to be able to create space intentionally to decide who you want to be, how you want to show up and actually just sitting with and being with the emotions, like when we're out of touch of our emotions. It's kind of funny because when we're out of touch with our emotions, we kind of are letting our emotions run the show, but we don't think we are. We don't think we're letting our emotions run the show, but they actually are, like, totally in charge. Our emotions are making the decisions. Our emotions are keeping us stuck in cycles that we don't want to be stuck in. Our emotions are reacting to everything that is going on. We're not actually in touch with them. They're sitting in the driver's seat doing all the driving and we're sitting in the passenger seat just watching the show happen, like completely disconnected from them. So I want to talk about what this looks like and how to help you shift out of emotional survival into emotional resilience, because I think that's going to be more helpful for you At least it has been for me and it is for my clients. And there's my kitty that's Charlie.

Karin Nelson:

Okay, so when we're going through a divorce again, we're going to find ourselves being immensely filled with pressure from like all sides. There's pressure to be the perfect mom, right, even though you feel like your world is falling apart. But you got to show up and you got to be present. You got to do all the things correctly and right and in the best way. At least there's pressure we feel this pressure to do that. There's pressure to keep everything together and not let your kids see that you're struggling or that it hurts or that you're sad or any of that, right. There's pressure to handle all of the legal stuff and make all of the financial decisions, but you're feeling completely overwhelmed by it all. So there's pressure from family, there's pressure from friends, there's pressure from all these people who have their opinions about what you should or shouldn't have done or said or did or whatever. Right, we're getting it from everywhere. And then on top of that, we're going to add in, like the grief that you're feeling, or the anger that's coming up, or the uncertainty of what your life is going to look like after the divorce is final.

Karin Nelson:

And we take all of these emotions like shame or guilt or inadequacy or frustration or anger or fear, or all of them together, and we don't want to feel them anymore because we've got all this pressure Plus. We've got all of these emotions and we're like I don't want to feel this way anymore. I'm kind of done feeling this way anymore. And so we take it and we just like push it down, really far down, and we're like if I just push it into this little box and put a lid on the box, then maybe I don't have to feel it anymore. Or we'll tell ourselves something like, well, I just don't have time for this. I have to go to work now and earn the money to be able to provide for my family, now that I'm a one income house, or I don't have time for this. Charlie is just going to say hi to you guys.

Karin Nelson:

Like, whatever we're telling ourselves, we tell ourselves all kinds of things that aren't true, right, but we believe them. And when we do that and this is something that we do, all of us as humans we do this. It's very natural. But when we do that, we are either repressing or pushing down our emotions, or we're avoiding them or pretending like they're not there, or pretending like we can't handle it, or we are reacting to our emotions that we're feeling and reacting to the situation that we're going through and like taking that reaction out on other people and other things around us. But when we do that, we are living in this heightened nervous system state, like we are going into survival mode and we're not making it any better for ourselves. We are coming straight from that place of fight, flight or freeze and of course, everyone does this. I'm not saying that you're abnormal or you're doing it wrong. When you live from your fight, flight or freeze response, it's very normal for our amygdala to kick in, our nervous system gets heightened and then the habitual response of fight, flight or freeze and make decisions from that place and I think everybody probably has like a natural tendency toward one or the other of those responses.

Karin Nelson:

It may depend on the situation. For me personally, I think my tendency is to come from flight. I'm like I'm out of here, I don't want to deal with this. Leave'm like I'm out of here, I don't want to deal with this, leave me alone, I'm out Bye. Yours might be like to fight, like get aggressive, like I want to battle everything out, I want a war to figure this out and I'm going to go to war with my ex over every little thing. Or for others it might be like I don't want to talk about this, I don't want the reality of this situation. I'm just going to shut down.

Karin Nelson:

But often what happens when we're living from this constantly reactive state is it doesn't do us any good. It makes it harder to co-parent effectively, at least from your point of view. Don't get me wrong. I am not talking about trying to have a perfect co-parenting relationship. I know that can be challenging if the other co-parent is not on board and is also combative and causing conflict. I'm not saying that that isn't your reality, because it totally might be. But let's control what we can control and if you are showing up from a reactive state that probably isn't creating any kind of olive branch or openness toward having a better co-parenting relationship. Whether or not they decide they're going to from their end, it's not coming from your end either, right? It's not good for your mental health, it's not good for your physical health.

Karin Nelson:

And what I really want you to understand is when we're feeling these intense emotions all the time but we're not willing to sit with them and process them in a healthy way, all we're doing is piling more heavy, challenging emotion on top of the other without actually having a way of releasing it or processing through it. And what we want to be able to do is not be afraid of those emotions, to be able to sit with those emotions and feel those emotions and still live our lives, like not let those emotions stop us from living our life, but also not let those emotions run the show. We actually can feel the emotions but, outside of that, make decisions that are intentional, that are for our best interest or for the best interest of our future that we're trying to work toward. We want to make decisions where we feel empowered in our life, not closed down or shut off or conflicted. We want to make decisions, where we actually feel motivated to change, where we feel healthy and good and loving, where we want to create space to open up and understand and get curious and decide how to respond, instead of letting the emotion do the responding for us, which is usually just a reaction, not actually a response that is chosen or intentional. Okay, so here's something that I want you to understand when we don't take the time to process through or learn how to process through or allow these emotions to flow through us, then our nervous system stays in that constantly heightened state. Then our nervous system stays in that constantly heightened state. Our brain literally and by brain I mean the prefrontal cortex part of our brain it literally becomes less flexible. Like it is scientifically proven that our brain goes into a lower iq state when our emotional state is heightened. So our brain the part of the brain that like does the decision making and the problem solving, and all of that becomes less flexible, which then starts a chain reaction of more stress, more fear, more anger, more shame, more guilt because we're not thinking straight. A chain reaction of more stress, more fear, more anger, more shame, more guilt Because we're not thinking straight, which makes us believe that we're just not capable of handling difficult situations or knowing what to do or how to make conscious choices that are best for us or be intentional. It makes us feel like we're stupid and we tell ourselves we're stupid and none of those things are true. None of those things are true. You are totally capable of knowing what is best and right for you. We just got to get you to a place where you believe that and where you allow the emotions to be there, but you again, you don't let them run the show, because when we feel stuck and we feel worried and we feel uncertain, we just keep reacting and reacting, and reacting. So let's change that cycle.

Karin Nelson:

There's an amazing quote, and I think it's by Viktor Frankl. I don't know if it's exactly this quote, but they but pretty much. This is the gist of it. He said something like between stimulus and response there is a space, and in that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom. So I think other people have said it. I don't know if he said exactly that, but it's basically what we're trying to do is create the space where we choose our response. So we've got the stimulus right, the thing, the text from our ex or our kids yelling at us and telling us we're doing it wrong as a parent or whatever right. That's the stimulus. And then we have our response and oftentimes, if we don't create that space, it will come out as a reaction.

Karin Nelson:

Usually, that reaction is not what we want. We yell, we shoot back some mean comment, we shut down, we pull away, we create disconnection, like whatever it is. There's lots of different ways to react, but usually it's not from our highest self and it doesn't usually create what we want, which is growth, connection, love, curiosity, openness, evolution of us, like something like that right. So we want to create that space where we can decide what response we want. The space is our power to choose. That is where our freedom lies, that is where growth lies, that is where we heal ourselves in that space, that space between what happens to us and how we respond is where we open up and allow what needs to be felt. And when you allow what needs to be felt being with those emotions that's where you get to find clarity. You get to choose how you want to respond. You get to choose who you want to be when you show up, and then you actually get to show up as that person, be that person, move forward one step closer to who you're becoming. So let me show you what it looks like to go from emotional survival to emotional resilience.

Karin Nelson:

Let's say that your ex we'll go back to the example of your ex sending a text okay. Let's say he sends you a text and it's just, it's the rudest text ever. Okay, he's just a jerk. He sends you a text. It's demeaning or it's just nasty, or he's accusing you of something like whatever. Right. You immediately feel that heightening of your nervous system. You feel that surge of anger or hurt or frustration or sadness and typically your reaction would be firing back your own nasty text or calling your friend and just venting for like an hour about what a terrible person he is, what a piece of shit he is, or you'll just completely ignore it and then just spin in your head in the anger and how much you hate him and how he is the worst human and how you're the stupidest because you chose him Like whatever. I'm not saying you're any of those things, but I know what our brains do. I know the stories that we tell ourselves. Okay, and that's your typical. Maybe one of those is your typical way of responding, but here's what it looks like when we are in like this emotional resilience mode.

Karin Nelson:

Here's what happens you get that text and you feel that surge of emotion, that anger or that hurt or that sadness, and instead of judging yourself for feeling it first, you validate and you say it. First you validate and you say, okay, I'm feeling very angry right now, and you know what. It makes total sense that I feel angry because of what I just read. But then, see, you created some space. First, you validated that it's okay to be feeling angry. There's nothing wrong with anger. Usually, when we feel anger, it's like what we do afterwards. That like creates problems for us, right? Which would be your reaction. So you take that breath, you validate what you're feeling and why it makes total sense and then, instead of immediately reacting, you create that space. Maybe you take some breaths, maybe you ground yourself, maybe you just put your phone down and step away for a minute. You do something to create space.

Karin Nelson:

And then you ask yourself some important questions what is this situation actually calling for? Like, who do I want to be in this situation? Okay, is there a response that would serve any of my long-term goals or the person that I want to be, or the future that I'm moving toward. Okay, am I going to be proud or okay with the response that I send or do tomorrow, or am I going to look back and go? Why did I do that? I wish I wouldn't have done that. That was not a great choice and it's from that place of clarity of intention, of asking yourself these questions and getting curious, that you can choose your response. You can intentionally decide what you want to do.

Karin Nelson:

So, going back to this example, you get the text, you feel the things, you feel the anger. You validate it, you understand, it makes sense why you feel this way, but you haven't done anything yet. You've maybe grounded yourself, you've maybe stepped away, you've given yourself some space, like literal space, right, but also figurative space in your brain. You've asked yourself some questions. Maybe you respond in a very factual way. You don't have any emotion in the response, it's just facts. Maybe that's how you do it. Maybe you decide you know what.

Karin Nelson:

This text actually doesn't even require a response from me at all, so I will not respond. Maybe that's what you do. Maybe you address the underlying issue and say listen, we can have a conversation about this later. I will text you later. Or you don't say anything and you just decide in your head I will text him later. We're going to have a conversation about this later. I'm going to give him time to calm down and me time to calm down, maybe it's. This is actually quite important and I need the help of my lawyer to figure out how to address this. Maybe it's like, I don't know. There's probably a million different things depending on what that text says and what the context is. But when you can decide intentionally and ask yourself some of those questions that I gave you, it will help you create that space that you are looking for. That's the shift that we want, because we want to go from emotional survival to emotional resilience, and it's going to take some practice, but I promise you it is simpler than you think.

Karin Nelson:

No emotion is dangerous or wrong. They truly aren't. It's how we react and behave when we feel those emotions that can be dangerous or create havoc in our lives. So we want to acknowledge them and give them space to be, but we don't have to react to them. We don't have to behave in ways that make us show up like crazy people when we feel them. Just be present with them. Literally be present with the emotion, but don't let it make your decisions. That's what I'm trying to tell you here, right? So process through the emotion and then get back to the place where you feel more grounded, where your nervous system is less heightened and your prefrontal cortex has a chance to come back online, because when that happens, your thinking and your reasoning and your decision making and your problem solving comes back online with it. And then you're like okay, now I can ask myself those questions what response would be best here, and do I like my reasons for that? And if I do, that's what I'm going to do.

Karin Nelson:

I see women that I coach make this shift all the time. So when I'm watching them and I'm watching it in myself as well I know it's possible for you to do this too. I know it's possible for you to do this too I can watch someone go from being completely reactive in the way they show up to overpractice and time to being able to change right. With change comes failure. That's not a problem. We just try it again. We try and do better next time. It's okay, we're not shooting for perfection here. We're just trying to show up better the next time than we did the last time. That's all we can ask of ourselves and that's okay.

Karin Nelson:

It actually can help change who you are in the dynamic of the divorce, who you are in your own life, and you start to believe in your own capabilities of being able to feel and be with emotions, but not letting them run the show. You are capable of becoming emotionally resilient and it can change your entire life. You're going to model emotional regulation for your kids. When you do this, you're going to model it to your family. You're even going to model it to your ex, and he's not even going to know and it's going to be really cool and maybe he'll change, and maybe he won't, doesn't matter. We're not trying to control him, but it is going to change your life and that is the beauty of it. It makes you so freaking powerful in your life because you start to make decisions that are best and right for you, because you're not reacting to everything anymore. You're creating space and responding in the way that you feel to be best and right for you.

Karin Nelson:

Remember, this is practice. You're gonna make mistakes, you're gonna mess up. It's okay. We just try again. We just try to do better next time. Not a problem, all right.

Karin Nelson:

My friends, I hope this is helpful. Start creating space for yourselves. Start creating that emotional resilience that you're looking for in your life. You are capable of this. I promise you. I believe in you. I see it happen every day with my clients. You've got this. I love you.

Karin Nelson:

Thank you for being here. I will be back next week. Hi, friend, I'm so glad you're here and thanks for listening. I wanted to let you know that if you're wanting more, a way to make deeper, more lasting change, then working one-on-one with me as your coach may be exactly what you need. Together, we'll take everything you're learning in the podcast and implement it in your life, with weekly coaching, real-life practice and practical guidance. To learn more about how to work with me one-on-one, go to KarinNelsonCoachingcom. That's W-W-W dot K-A-R-I-N-N-E-L E L S O N coachingcom. Thanks for listening. If this podcast agreed with you in any way, please take a minute to follow and give me a rating. Wherever you listen to podcasts and for more details about how I can help you live an even better life than when you were married. Make sure and check out the full show notes by clicking the link in the description.

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Karin Nelson

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