Be Audacious After Divorce

“I just don’t want to be miserable anymore” sounds reasonable after divorce, but it can also trap you in a life where you never really stretch yourself or create something really incredible after divorce. So in this episode I'm talking about audacity: the decision to want more, believe more, and build more, even when you don’t have proof yet and even when a small scared part of your brain says it’s safer to stay realistic.

We dig into why so many divorcing and divorced women shrink their dreams after years of self-abandonment and survival mode, and how that “fine is good enough” mindset becomes the blueprint for what comes next. I unpack the fear behind big hopes, especially the fear of being wrong, being judged, or feeling humiliated, and I offer a reframe that changes everything.

I also share a personal story from my own divorce and the audacious choice I made about co-parenting after betrayal, long before I had any evidence it would work. It wasn’t perfect, but it became possible because I kept moving from toward the vision instead letting my fears of it not working out hold me back. You’ll leave with a simple one-week practice to define an “unreasonable” desire for your post-divorce life and start showing up like that future is already in motion.

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DISCLAIMER: THE COMMENTARY AND OPINIONS AVAILABLE ON THIS PODCAST ARE FOR EDUCATIONAL, INFORMATIONAL AND ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY AND ARE NOT FOR THE PURPOSE OF PROVIDING PSYCHOLOGICAL, COUNSELING OR PROFESSIONAL HEALTHCARE ADVICE. 

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Transcript

Welcome And The Audacious Challenge

Karin Nelson 0:00

Welcome to Becoming You Again. This is the podcast for divorcing and divorced women who want to come home to themselves after years of self-abandonment. I'm your host, Karin Nelson. I'm a divorce coach, and I love helping women learn to trust themselves again, learn to reclaim their identity and build lives that actually feel like theirs. Today I'm going to be talking about something that might make you feel a little bit uncomfortable at first. I don't know. We'll have to see. But today I am teaching you how to be more audacious. Yes, you heard that right. Audacious. I think sometimes audacious is like taken as something bad. But today I'm going to teach you how to make it something good. Because I want to teach you how amazing your life after divorce can be. And I promise you, by the end of this episode, you're going to see why this might be one of the most important things that you can do for your divorce healing process. So let's get started. 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 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. Hello, all of you wonderful, amazing women. Welcome back to the podcast. I am, as always, so happy that you're here because I want to talk about something that might sound a little unconventional. As I just said, I want to talk about the power of you being audacious, of you being unreasonable, ungovernable, about your own life. Now, stick with me here because I know that this might sound counterintuitive coming from me as a divorce coach, me telling you to like be unreasonable, be audacious, which again, like going back to this idea that those things are typically looked at by society as not good. Don't be unreasonable. Go with, don't be unreasonable, go with the flow. Don't be audacious. It's too outspoken. It's being too much. But I'm gonna tell you no. It is time to do the complete opposite of what people are telling you and be audacious, be unreasonable about the life that you want to live after your divorce.

Why Settling For Fine Keeps You Stuck

Karin Nelson 2:36

So many of the women that I work with come to me stuck in this exact place. They're either divorcing or they are newly divorced. And when I ask them what they want their life to look like or what they think their life is going to look like on the other side of this whole process, they'll say something like, I don't actually know, or I just hope that I'm okay, or I hope that I can figure it out, or I hope like maybe eventually I'll be okay. Or I just actually don't want to be miserable anymore. And that's it. Like that's the whole vision. I just hope I'm not miserable. I hope I'm fine. I hope I can figure it out. And I'm not saying there's anything bad or wrong with that. I think those are fine to want, right? Like, of course we don't want you to be miserable. Of course we want you to be fine and for things to work out. And I understand that. When you've been through what you've been through, when you've been self-abandoning for years, when your nervous system has been living in survival mode for 10, 15, 20 plus years, right? Dreaming and believing that you can actually have an amazing life, dreaming and believing that you can actually like reach for something that you actually want sounds and feels really dangerous, really scary, really out of reach, really unreasonable. Wanting more feels like something that's not okay for you to do. Imagining a life that actually feels and looks incredible almost feels like you're setting yourself up for disappointment. And what's the point of that when you've been living in this disappointment this whole time? Because that's just more of the same, right? And so, what do we do as women? We stay small. We just aim for okay, we just aim for fine, we just aim for I just don't want to be miserable anymore. But the problem with that is that what you believe about your life will become what you build after your divorce. So if the best thing that you hope for is to just be okay, is to just not be miserable anymore, is to just be fine, that's what you're gonna build. And again, okay, you can do that, but I'm telling you there are other options out there. I'm gonna teach you what that can mean today. If you believe that the best years of your life are behind you, or that they were wasted in your marriage, that's what you're gonna build, is that you don't have any good years ahead of you, that they've all been wasted and there's nothing left that's good, right? Do you see how this like this narrative will continue on moving forward? If you believe you're too old or you're too tired, or you're too broken, or you're too much, or you're not enough for something amazing in your life to come, to be built, to be presented, to be created, then that's what you're gonna build. You're gonna be too old for the things. You're gonna be too tired, you're gonna be too broken, you're gonna be too much or not enough.

Believe Before Proof And Drop Humiliation

Karin Nelson 5:45

So today, in this episode, I am giving you permission to be audacious, to be unreasonable with what you believe about your future. So, what does that mean? That means that I want you to start believing things about your future that you cannot yet prove. I want you to start believing things about yourself that the small scared part of your brain is gonna say, but what if you're wrong about that? What if you're wrong about that? What if it doesn't turn out? What if it doesn't come to fruition? What if we can't create that? Because here's the thing that I really, really, really, really, really, really want you to hear about this. So what if you're wrong? Seriously, like so what? So what if you're wrong and it doesn't turn out, like you imagine this amazing, incredible, beautiful, joyful life after divorce? What if it doesn't completely turn out? What if you're wrong? What if you decide that the life after divorce is going to be the best chapter you've ever lived and you're wrong? Meaning, what if there are people out there who are like, well, she doesn't deserve that or she shouldn't have that because she's divorced, and divorced women shouldn't be happy? They should have stayed in their marriage. What's the bad outcome here? That you get to live a life full of confidence and joy and excitement while somebody judges you that you should be feeling guilty about the life that you chose or the life that you wanted to create. What if you decide that you're going to find love again if that's what you want, or discover that you don't need to have love again, or build a friendship circle circle deeper than you've ever had. And so you live your life believing that you are confident and attract great people to be around you, and you believe that you're attractive and you believe that you are capable of creating this amazing life. And then there are people out there who don't agree, who don't believe you're attractive, who do who don't believe you're capable, who think you should be shrinking and staying small. Again, what's the bad outcome here? That you lived your life feeling confident and attracting people that you want in your life to be in your life and letting go of the people who don't agree? Like there's no bad outcome here, is what I'm trying to help you see. There is no world where believing that your life will be beautiful or better or incredible somehow is going to make your life worse. Society has taught women, especially women after divorce, that we're supposed to be humble, that we're supposed to be realistic, that we're supposed to be reasonable. Don't want too much, don't dream too big, don't assume that good stuff is coming for you. Because if we do and it doesn't, then we'll be humiliated. Says who? Like who's creating the humiliation? The only person that would be creating that humiliation would be you, because nobody else can give it to you, and you're allowed to not feel humiliated. Did you know that? You're allowed to choose to not feel humiliated because something didn't turn out exactly the way you imagined that it would, or hoped that it would, or wanted it to, or thought in your head I could create that, and then it doesn't get exactly the outcome. Because that humiliation that you're gonna create for yourself, it only exists if you decide that other people's opinions about your life, about what you did or didn't create, are more accurate than your own. And why would we assume that? Why would we want to assume that the world's low expectations of what our life can look like after divorce are the correct ones? Why would we assume that any random person who thinks that a divorced woman in her forties or in her fifties is past her prime? And then we're the wrong ones for disagreeing with what they think. Like this is an equation that we've been told our entire life. And it's exactly why so many of us, including myself, through my marriage, shrunk ourselves or are shrinking ourselves into invisibility. Here's what I want you to do for you, because this happens with the women that I work with, and this happened with me. The women who decide before they have proof of it, before there's any like evidence that it's going to turn out, the women who decide on purpose that their life is going to be beautiful, is going to be amazing, it's going to be peaceful, is going to be joyful, is going to be incredibly full on the other side. That's what they build. That's what they move toward. They make decisions from that place. They wake up and they show up like they're worthy of creating the life that they want. And it doesn't mean that everything is perfect and it doesn't mean that every day is amazing and we don't feel negative emotions. That's not what that means at all. It just means that we're willing to put in the work and move toward that goal without just accepting the status quo of I don't want to be miserable. I hope that it turns out okay. What if you got to decide that it was going to turn out okay? That it was going to turn out great, that it was going to turn out incredible even.

A Real Example Of Audacious Co Parenting

Karin Nelson 11:14

So let me give you an example of what this looked like in my own life. When I was going through my divorce, when I when I actually went to my husband at the time and said, I want a divorce, I said to him, I want a divorce, but I do not want our divorce to look like everybody else's divorce. I do not want our divorce to be like full of animosity, where we hate each other, where we make the kids pick sides, where we can't get along, where we can't do birthdays together or Christmas or Thanksgiving or even be in the same room just because it's so terrible, which we could have. We absolutely could have. He cheated on me. I was very angry, very upset, felt very rejected. Like we had a lot of things going on where we absolutely could have had that kind of a divorce. And I said, I don't know how we do this. I don't know how it will work. I don't even know if it will work out this way, but I do not want that kind of divorce. I didn't have any proof that it was going to turn out. We had a lot of learning curves to go through. There were a lot of times where there was conflict between us, where we did have to figure out our footing in terms of co-parenting. We lived in the same house together for an entire year after we filed and after the divorce actually went through, where we had to work around each other, where we had to figure it out, where we disagreed on things and had to work together to put our children first and figure out what that was going to look like. And it wasn't always perfect, but you know what I always kept in my head? A vision of an amazing co-parenting relationship where we were still a united family unit as parent children, but we were divorced. And we've been able to do that. We've been able to create that. That is what our future looks like. And we are living that future now because we've been divorced about 10 years now. We can go to karaoke with our oldest daughter and her partner and have a great time. We can go celebrate dinner as the four of us, my two kids and my ex and I, for one of our children's birthdays. It's not a problem. We have a great time. We have that thing that I imagined because I believed that it was possible and we moved toward it. Didn't mean that everything was perfect, didn't mean that we got every decision correct or that we did it all the right way or that there was even a right way to do it. It means that I was audacious in believing that was possible. And I'm not saying that's possible for everyone. I understand that there are people who have completely different relationships. I'm not saying that should be your dream. But I moved toward that. And it's possible for you to create the kind of outcome that you want. And it doesn't have to be with co-parenting, it could be anything. It could be like, what kind of a financial life do I want? What kind of a just life in general do I want after divorce? What do I want it to look like? Dream big and move toward that goal. Because even if it doesn't look exactly the way you dream it, it's going to be better than what you have now, which may just be a very low baseline of I don't want to be miserable. Women who wait until they feel confident before they act or before they dream, they're going to wait forever. Don't be one of those women. I didn't have the confidence that we were going to be able to be great co-parents and be able to do stuff with our kids, like without feeling uncomfortable or weird, or without being able to speak or be in the same room. I didn't have any confidence that we could create that. I just went for it. I just believed we could do it, that we'd figure it out, and we'd make mistakes along the way and course correct, right? Confidence is never going to come from the outside, from like these outside circumstances. It's always going to come from believing that you have it somewhere inside of you and then moving toward that. That's what being audacious actually is. It's just deciding to trust yourself and the future that you want to create before you have every piece of evidence showing that you can create it. It's living from the vision instead of living from the fear that you don't have it yet. Being unreasonable is not about pretending, it's about refusing to accept the small life that the world is trying to hand you. It's about being willing to want more than you're told you're allowed to want. And this is the really cool part that I want you to understand. Even if you are wrong, even if you were wrong, even if the life you're imagining, imagining doesn't unfold exactly the way you're picturing it, you're still gonna have a better experience living out this amazing, precious one life that you have, believing in it, believing that you can reach something better, something more, than by not. Because what you believe about yourself and what you believe about your future is what you create.

Your One Week Audacity Practice

Karin Nelson 16:21

So this week, I want you to just try something. I just want you to decide. We're not looking for any evidence. We have zero evidence, but I just want you to decide from audacious confidence or audacity or whatever you want to call it that your life after divorce is going to be fill in the blank. It can be beautiful, it can be joyful, it can be incredible, it can be amazing, it can be fun, it can be stable, it can be wealthy, it can be like literally fill in the blank with an audacious, with an unreasonable want. Not okay. I don't want you to put okay in that blank. I don't want you to put fine. I don't want you to put not miserable. I want you to choose something that feels out of reach but exciting. And then I want you to just decide that you're absolutely capable of creating this, of moving toward it. And then just move through the world like it's already true, like it's already happening, like you're being pulled, like you have a tether, right, attached to you and the future that you're moving toward, that is pulling you toward it. Because the women who build beautiful, amazing lives after divorce, they are not the women who waited to feel worthy of those lives. They are not the women who waited to see the proof before it was there. They are the women who decided to believe in their worth, in their ability to create, in their capability of handling things whenever they come up, but still moving forward without the proof. So I want you to be audacious. I want you to be unreasonable. I want you to be like embarrassingly certain that your future is going to be incredible. I want you to be inappropriately confident about this. Like inappropriately to where people are like, oh my gosh, who like told her that she could act that way? Yeah, you did. You told you you're allowed to act that way. That's what I want for you. Okay. I want you to be the woman who is already living the life that she wants, even before it is fully here. Because nothing is more powerful than a woman who trusts herself and trusts that she can create the kind of future that she wants. And a woman who decides that she's in charge of her life and what it's going to look like without waiting for permission from somebody outside or without hoping that people on the outside are going to give her permission, that's the woman who creates a beautiful, amazing life. All right, my friends, that is what I have for you today. Go be audacious. I'm excited to hear what you create. Thank you so much for being here. I will be back next week.

Coaching Invite And How To Support

Karin Nelson 19:27

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 Karin Nelsoncoaching.com. That's www.k-ar-in-n, n-el-s-o-n coaching.com. 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.