00:00:00.000 — 00:02:07.660 · Speaker 1 And I'm so excited for our special guest today, Lilly Shepard, my friend and about to be yours. So you're going to want to stay tuned in and check this one out. Let's be honest, most of us were taught to wait our turn to tone it down to save it for later. Later, when the kids are grown. Later when the timing's right. Later when you finally stop caring what they think. Well, I'm done waiting. I'm Hannah Hembree Bell, Texas divorce lawyer, mom and woman who rebuilt her life from the wreckage. This is not saving it for later. The podcast guiding women through divorce and beyond. The place where we stop whispering about what's hard and start talking about what's real. Marriage, divorce, money, motherhood, faith, sex. Power. No filters, no fake empowerment BS. Just straight talk and practical truth for women who are done pretending that everything's fine because your next chapter isn't waiting on permission and neither are we. Okay, Lily, I am so thrilled. Number one, to see you every time I see you, it just makes my heart feel so happy. Um. And I'm so excited for all you're gonna have to share with our listeners today and, like, thinking about how to introduce you to people. Um, I go back to when I first knew you and, like, what I think of when I think of Lily Shepherd is someone who lives their life out loud, which, with so much joy and passion and purpose, where like mind, heart and body are all connected in one, and living that in such a way that inspires others to do the same. And I've thought that ever since I ever first met you. And I know, like, how would you talk about what it is that you do? Because I know that look, even since I've known you, some of the way we talk about it has evolved. So as we catch you at this moment in time, um, how would you introduce yourself to people meeting you for the first time? 00:02:07.660 — 00:02:45.060 · Speaker 2 I love that you said that, Hannah, because it's definitely changed and evolved. But I think at this point what I'm really identifying as is a somatic executive coach and really working with professional women in identity shifting and having them use their body to do that and having them understand that when you're coming into new levels of leadership, new relationship status, anything new, that change has to take place in the body as well. It can't just be a purely cognitive exercise. 00:02:45.100 — 00:03:55.430 · Speaker 1 Well, it's so interesting. We already started out straight into it, right, about identity and who we are because we've known each other now for years, and this is an experience that I have. I imagine this happens for you, and I used to feel like badly about it or weird about it, and people listening in case you feel the same way. It's like, you know, hey, when I'm talking to someone like, oh, well, what's going on with you lately? I'm like, okay, right now as you catch me at this moment in time, uh, this is what's up. This is what's the latest with the podcast or with the book or whatever is happening. But just FYI, if you catch me in three months, again, I may tell you something completely different, because I'm in the middle of my becoming. And I think that as women who are out there, I don't I mean, living a life like the people who are listening to this show who are living their life. And that does mean taking on new roles and identities all the time as we find more of ourselves. So I for what it's worth, I've started saying that when I'm talking to people, I'm like, okay, where do you catch me in this moment? Because then if when I don't say it like that, people be like, wait a minute, I thought blah blah blah and trying to pin me back in. 00:03:55.470 — 00:04:29.550 · Speaker 2 Doesn't it feel so good to just understand that you don't have to, like, follow this predetermined script? Like, you can start rewriting your story at any point and just to kind of feel free from the being pigeonholed. Okay, so you saw me three weeks ago and I and I was doing this. Well, now I'm doing that. Isn't that great? You know, and it kind of trains the people around you to not know what to expect and to be okay with that, because a lot of people, we don't realize that we get a lot of our comfort from other people being predictable. 00:04:29.710 — 00:04:31.070 · Speaker 1 Mhm. Well, and. 00:04:31.070 — 00:04:31.190 · Speaker 2 I. 00:04:31.190 — 00:05:48.300 · Speaker 1 Think that there's this push pull, um, knife's edge or something between being like flighty and all over the place. Right. Because there, there is, there could be some element of that. I don't think that that describes these of us to anybody who knows us. But there could be that versus, hey, I'm in the middle of my becoming and I give myself Permission to evolve as, I don't know, circumstances. My heart, my feet, what I call my feet lead me into this new way of thinking about the thing. So I think that that's really a good segue to think about as we're talking to women who are either thinking about in the middle of or, you know, post-divorce living that custody life, how they are certainly in their becoming because who they were. If once you're divorced, you're not going to be the same person. I mean, just by function of the fact you'll have at least one less person in your life. Right? And I know you're divorced, so I know you can speak to this. Um, could you talk to us a little bit about, you know, what comes up for you when you think about a woman in the middle of divorce and like, how your work with and, you know, identity and and the body, how that kind of fits in there. 00:05:48.420 — 00:06:19.689 · Speaker 2 Yeah. Well, Wow, wow. I think one of the most important things is understanding that everyone says it's a new beginning. It's a new beginning, and we get that messaging. But a lot of times I know for me, I was trying to function from an old pattern. Like I recognize that, okay, there's one less person. I'm a single mom now. Like I understood on paper the things that were changing in my life, but I was still operating from 00:06:20.970 — 00:06:51.679 · Speaker 2 a not a new beginning, from almost like a clinging phase. For a while. It took me a while to completely sever. Like, this is over. This is old. I need to move forward and start to reimagine my life, not as being defined as what has ended, but like, what am I going towards now? I think I spent a lot of time in there, like what has ended and what's different and what's changed, and that's all very valid. But 00:06:52.840 — 00:06:58.840 · Speaker 2 the faster you're able to move into the new beginning part, it's so much more, um, 00:07:00.160 — 00:07:29.080 · Speaker 2 expansive to think about what's going to happen now. What can I choose to do now? That was the biggest thing for me because I my divorce story is horrific. I mean, really bad. You know, it was not just, oh, we went our separate ways or, um, you know, it was very humiliating. Very dramatic. There was a lot of drama surrounding everything. And it was it was probably the worst period of my life. 00:07:30.640 — 00:07:32.920 · Speaker 3 Yeah. Me too. Um, and. 00:07:32.920 — 00:08:49.530 · Speaker 1 I think the way I talk about it is we talk about what you're running from. People get really clear in a divorce. I think, for the most part. And what they're running from. And they're running from that asshole on the other side or whatever it is abusive situation or something. Someone they don't love. They don't. They don't usually spend the time to get clear on what they're running toward. And I think, you know, for my own self, had I gotten clearer on that, I mean, things would have been very different. And I think it comes from like a survival place at first, at least for women. I think most women are getting divorced, or at least historically. And my clients and people I've worked with. Maybe some of this is changing, but I know, at least for me, at the time it was about survival. And like I had to get divorced so I could keep existing as a person on this planet. And I wasn't worried about who I was going to become. I was just trying to stay around, I guess. Um, and I think that had I more quickly connected with who I was trying to become, who I wanted to be, what I wanted that to look like. I might could have flattened that timeline out some. 00:08:49.570 — 00:08:55.890 · Speaker 2 I mean, and it's a process, right? Because there's grief, there's mourning, there's a loss. And so 00:08:57.330 — 00:09:44.600 · Speaker 2 I want to be careful not to say like, well, you should just, you know, okay. What's next? Who am I becoming, right. You have to have time to, to process all that has taken place. And when you just can set that intention from the beginning of focusing on who you are becoming and what identity you want to hold now, and not just that of a divorcée or a single mom. Because I held on to that for a long time. That was like who? I was such a huge part of my story. It was less about who am I? Lily Shepard, the woman moving forward. It was, I'm divorced. I'm a single mom. This happened like I really clung to those titles, and I wasn't seeing the beautiful opportunity to redefine myself for me. 00:09:44.960 — 00:12:38.810 · Speaker 1 Yeah, I think that a lot of us and the temptation for a lot of y'all listening will be to do that. It's like, you know, you go to some sort of a work party or a dinner party or Christmas or something, and you've all met this person who starts talking about their ex in the divorce, and you're thinking, it was a last year, last week, last month. And really, this was something that happened ten years ago. And we talk a lot on the show about, you know, divorce is going to make you bitter or bitter and you get to choose. And I think a sure fire way to become bitter or to sound bitter or come across as bitter, is to stay rooted in that divorce. A single mom. What was identity? And here's the thing that's backward looking. That's past looking. By defining yourself by something in the past and when you're turned around looking at the past, right. You're not looking at the future. So I wonder, Lily. You know, I think it bears for us to think about a slowdown for just one second, about identity. And I have thought a lot about identity in the divorce universe. Um, and for me, it what I realized is that most of us build our identities derivative. We define ourselves in relation to other things. So if you ask somebody like, okay, who are you? You'd be like, I'm a wife, I'm a mom, I'm a church member, whatever these things are. And each one of those things relies on something else to define you, right? You're giving that power. Well, I'm a mom. Means there's got to be some kids. I'm a wife. But. So what happens with divorce is it pulls out one of those identities, your your wife identity and what you probably are going to realize some of y'all listening have. I know I did. You can tell me if this was true for your experience. Once that Wi-Fi identity was pulled out, you realize you'd built your identity on a house of cards because the whole thing kind of comes down around you, because you were so defined by everything else that you were this wife. You were a mom in this certain way. You you know, you were a community member, church member in this certain way. And that to me, the real process of healing. I'm using quotes like healing that people talk about. No one back then was telling you anything about anything about healing. Ten years ago when I was doing this. But what I've learned in retrospect, like looking backwards, is that it's in stopping, placing the power to define who you are and everything and everyone else but yourself, so that now if someone says to me, who are you? I'm brave, I'm strong, I'm kind. Right? Those are my own rooted, independent identity that don't require the definition of another. It's like if you pick me up and drop me off on the other side of the world, in the desert. 00:12:38.890 — 00:12:39.890 · Speaker 2 I'm still this. 00:12:39.890 — 00:13:03.130 · Speaker 1 I'm still this person. And in that way, if one of the pieces of my identity is ripped off, ripped out, maybe. Maybe I pull it out. Someone else pulls it out. Disaster drama. Whatever. It doesn't mean my entire personhood collapses like a house of cards. And I think that so many of us 00:13:04.330 — 00:14:03.550 · Speaker 1 miss this. And what's amazing about divorce as this one big moment of life change, where they can make a different decision and and realize like, okay, I'm in awareness that I had done this, okay, I'm in awareness that I've been defining myself for absolutely everyone else. And that's dangerous because when it goes, I go what's left? And that's why a lot of women say that because they can't imagine a life where they're not a wife. They've been a wife since they were 20 years old, and they're 40 now. Now? What? What? Who is that person? So, like, for someone in that spot. Lily, who's, you know, either just thinking about and getting divorced or in the beginning. And they've been married a long time, and they've been defining themselves and their identity by being a wife for a long time. What advice would you give to them to start looking forward to a new way of thinking about themselves, a new identity? 00:14:03.670 — 00:15:39.410 · Speaker 2 Hmm. It's interesting because in looking forward, it may require them to look back in a positive way at what things that they might have abandoned in taking on this role of wife. So many things for me. It was dance and movement it. It never occurred to me during my marriage, but once I got divorced, how much less I was dancing, how much I wasn't moving, my body and I didn't think about it because I was embodying this role, and I was wife and I was in service to my husband and my family. But when I thought about it, I'm like, wow, this is something that I've loved to do since I was a child. I'm not doing it. And I and I wouldn't have even thought about it. I didn't even have the awareness to think about it because I thought, hey, this is life now. Oh, all the things that I love to do before, when I oh, that was just I was young kids, you know, kids stuff. Right. Hobbies. Fun stuff. Just the things that made me feel really good. I like to walk around the block as the sun is setting. Oh, I can't do that anymore. We got to cook dinner, right? Certain things just got replaced with other tasks and other duties and. Okay, well, that's just how it goes. But it doesn't have to be. Right. So I think first, kind of looking back at what things that used to really like me up, have I maybe abandoned during this time. And I want to start putting back into my life like things that really made me feel settled, made me feel safe, brought me some joy. How can I start filling the space with those things? 00:15:39.530 — 00:15:40.330 · Speaker 3 Okay, so. 00:15:40.330 — 00:15:41.370 · Speaker 1 Maybe the first thing they. 00:15:41.370 — 00:15:42.130 · Speaker 3 Could do. 00:15:42.130 — 00:16:02.970 · Speaker 1 Is look back to what they left behind. And I think that's so powerful. I think all of us in that moment. And part of it is the wife is part of it is the mom ness. You know, it's the growing up things. And I think that we try to or allow others, I don't know what it is, but convince ourselves that those things we enjoy, that's kid stuff. 00:16:03.010 — 00:16:13.770 · Speaker 2 Yeah. And it has no place right. It's not important. It loses its level of importance. We don't see it as significant. Right? It's not moving us forward necessarily. But that's the lie. 00:16:14.290 — 00:16:30.760 · Speaker 1 So once she's done that, once she's thought backwards and like, okay, here are the things that are missing. All right. And then how else do you help coach people through connecting with the new Person they want to be? What if they don't know? 00:16:32.120 — 00:19:11.060 · Speaker 2 Most people don't, right? Most people don't know exactly who. This new person is. But what they need to do is create a form of safety. They need to feel safe in their own body and in their nervous system. Because being divorced and detaching from this identity, it doesn't feel safe inside, you know? And and that manifests in headaches, tension, not sleeping well. I mean, all of the I was like physically a wreck when I was going through my divorce. And I wasn't ill necessarily, but my body felt different. And at that time I didn't have the language to describe what was happening, but a lot of it. I spent a lot of time in fight or flight. Right? I was always I had court dates, I and I was bracing, right? So my body was holding so much tension because I was always waiting for another shoe to drop or something else to come up in the discovery or. Something bad to happen that I had kind of developed, almost like an armor that I carried with me all of the time. Um, so first, creating safety in the body and for me, movement. That's what helped me to do that. That's when I started exploring yoga and I was always a dancer. Right? Movement was always a part of my life, but it was always, um, training, right, and stage performance. And I started to explore. What does this feel like when I just moved to release? Because all of this that I feel inside, it has to go somewhere. It has to go somewhere. I knew that what I was feeling was not, um, healthy for me and not sustainable. So that was a big part of my story, was like tapping in, I think I wrote it in my book, and I've shared this story with you of how I just felt like I had had enough, and I just heard a voice that was said, move and I just in my room had this cathartic experience. I danced, I jumped, I shook, I looked, I looked crazy. If someone would have been. It wasn't anything pretty or dance like at all. But boy, I felt like after that I had a much clearer idea of who I wanted to be moving forward. And it's crazy because I wasn't searching for that. I didn't say, well, let me move. And through this movement, I'm going to find out who I want to be. It was nothing like that. But that's what happened. And that's what made me believe in the power of schematics and moving things through the body and releasing emotions through movement. That's why I believe in it so strongly, because I felt that. 00:19:11.140 — 00:19:19.700 · Speaker 1 And you've said that word a couple of times now. So for those of us, um, like squares, what what does somatic mean? 00:19:19.740 — 00:19:39.280 · Speaker 2 It's just the body. Soma. The root of the word is soma, which means the body. So it's just. That's really it. Anytime. It's a kind of almost a buzzword now. It's like somatic therapy and somatic healing and somatic experiencing. Anytime you hear somatic, you can just substitute the word body. And that's what you're talking about okay. 00:19:39.320 — 00:19:55.080 · Speaker 1 Well okay. So first thing they're going to do is look backward to see all the places they've abandoned themselves. The next thing they're going to do is create safety through the body okay. And then after they've done that okay, I'm going to come back to that in a second. But I'm trying. 00:19:55.080 — 00:19:55.400 · Speaker 2 To get you. 00:19:55.400 — 00:20:18.600 · Speaker 1 To do that. Yeah, I know that there's a lot I have a lot more questions about that. But like, okay, so just so they can get the framework in their brain. So like for me to um, is after they've gotten the safety in their body, what's so once they've established that what's the where how did they put some meat on the bones of what that future them is like? How do they connect with that identity? 00:20:18.640 — 00:20:19.160 · Speaker 2 Um, 00:20:20.310 — 00:21:07.710 · Speaker 2 Imagination. First write just feeling into who this new woman is and really taking time and making it an exercise. I think we get older and we have all these responsibilities and imagination. Seems childish, right? But really, when I really close my eyes and I think about the woman that I want to become, what do I see? What does she look like? Where is she? What's she wearing? What is she eating? Who is she talking to? How is she speaking? All of these things. Really getting a very clear picture, and then starting to write those things down so that it stays with you, and then really doing your best to 00:21:08.990 — 00:21:22.540 · Speaker 2 move as that woman. Move as that woman. Like exactly how you saw her in your imagination. You don't have to, like, wait to become her. You just start moving as. 00:21:22.780 — 00:21:24.580 · Speaker 1 If they don't feel like that yet, though. Like you. 00:21:24.580 — 00:21:57.300 · Speaker 2 Won't. You won't feel like that, okay? You absolutely will not. You feel like you're playing pretend. Okay. Honestly. Right. Like, I'm. I'm pretending to do this. Doesn't matter. Keep doing it. Let it be fun. Okay, so you're pretending. Okay. Who cares? You know, but you're trying something on and kind of letting it take root. Because what happens if you don't do that? You'll think about it. It'll just be a thought. She'll exist only in your imagination and never move into any kind of form. 00:21:57.500 — 00:23:22.320 · Speaker 1 Well, and I guess for me, this this piece right here, I've only recently started to experientially understand what people are saying, because all over the Instagrams and the internets, people will tell you to envision this person in the future. And I've always struggled with that. Like, okay, I mean, I don't know, I and even the question. So it's like, okay, going through the series of questions, what is she like seeing her? I have a hard time in my own mind. I cannot picture myself. I don't see my own self. Um, you know, because we experience ourselves through our own eyeballs, right? So I'm not looking at me all the time. The internet, I'm on the internet all the time, but it's like I would kind of get stuck there. So I just for me though, once I started to say, okay, somebody asked me the question, like this person maybe giving him a tagline, the woman always courageous and walks into the room with confidence. Okay, it's like giving her a name. The confident woman. Let's just say so like it's Jill. Jill's getting divorced. I'm trying to feel okay. What is Jill's like self she wants to become? Well, she maybe she has confidence, right? When she walks into her room, people notice and they seem to like, sort of look her way or whatever that is, and then giving her a name and then asking yourself, okay, what would confident you'll do in this situation? How would she react? How would she respond to this message from the X factor? 00:23:22.360 — 00:23:23.160 · Speaker 2 And you can start. 00:23:23.160 — 00:23:23.880 · Speaker 1 Small. 00:23:23.920 — 00:23:43.520 · Speaker 2 Right? Maybe it's a song that makes you feel like that person. An outfit. One thing you don't have to, like, completely envision this whole other you and a whole other life and how they do every single thing. It can be really small to start. Music is a great portal, right? 00:23:43.560 — 00:24:08.720 · Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. I mean, for me, I am absolutely enamored with this artist, Spencer Sutherland. Have you heard any of his music? Oh, man. All I gotta do is pop that music on. And I am a saucy, sassy little thing. Um, it's like, take what I normally am and turn it up by, like, ten, so I know what you mean. Right. And then I put that on and all of a sudden I am like, ready? And so that's what you're doing. 00:24:08.960 — 00:24:38.820 · Speaker 2 In the body. And that is like the work that I do with clients. It's like, okay, We actually go through exercises to one, release the old identity. Right. And to be able to express that through the body, not just in words, and then start to move as this person, because the body is the vehicle that's going to carry you through your new life. You know, it's the thing. So how do we start moving as that person? How do we feel safe to be that person? 00:24:38.980 — 00:24:41.940 · Speaker 1 Before we go any further, let me ask you something. 00:24:41.940 — 00:25:00.819 · Speaker 4 What if you didn't have to Google your way through divorce at 2 a.m.? What if you actually had a place with real women's talk to real answers in real time? That's the circle. It's where I go live every single week, unpack the hard stuff and help you stop spinning. Go to my confident divorce 00:25:02.060 — 00:25:06.300 · Speaker 4 circle because confusion costs more than clarity ever will. 00:25:06.340 — 00:26:32.560 · Speaker 1 I cannot wait to see you in there! A tool I recommend for every client that I work with and every woman that I would meet on the street is called our family wizard. And y'all, this app, this website changed my life. I cannot overstate its impact because we all know that the hardest part, once you're done with the whole divorce thing and you've got your papers, it isn't the decree, it isn't the calendaring, it's the communication. Because if you're in a situation like I'm in, you will get messages from everywhere text message, Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook. Now, I mean, it's even worse with all the social media, phone calls, direct messages, it goes on and on. But what our family wizard does is brings that all into one place. So you have one place to check for messages, one place to be interrupted from your daily life to deal with the whole co-parenting situation. And like in addition to the messaging, it does amazing things like tracks expenses in real time so you don't have to argue about who did what with what receipt it does. Calendar entry. So you're not like, oh wait, sorry, I never got that invite. And you have that whole BS where you're not sure what to do. You can check in in real time. If you're ever worried about any future enforcement of the provisions in your decree or your judgment, this app changes lives and they've got special promotions and deals for listeners of the show. You can get access to those at our Family wizard.com. 00:26:34.400 — 00:27:36.030 · Speaker 1 And, you know, I think and we've talked about this before, Lily, but I think for those of us regular folks, the idea that we need to connect with the body and the way people talk about it, right, and you're going to get safety in the body. I feel like there's a bit of a logical jump there from the way it's normally thought of. Right? I think a lot of us don't live in the awareness that everything we experience, we experience through the body. Otherwise, you know, you're like a brain in a jar. Like I'm pinky in the brain or whatever that old cartoon was. Um, and but this, this notion. I think we have to stop it. Like the number two step right there. Going to get safety through the body. And that's what I want to talk about a little bit more, because I think most of us women left our body behind. We're mad at our bodies. We're mad at them for, um, not for being. Not being a skinny as we want them to be. 00:27:36.190 — 00:27:54.470 · Speaker 2 It's an object. You just push it, pull it, mold it, shape it the best way you can. And that's all it's there for. Like, I'm. I'm up here, I'm making everything happen. The body. What is that? That's just, you know, that's there to attract, um. Yes. There to give life. 00:27:54.470 — 00:29:57.610 · Speaker 1 And I think there's this otherness in the way most of us operate. Like, you're you're pointing at your brain being like, I'm up here, right? Like that's where we're operating from. And the body is almost like this robot That's like moving around while we do the gears inside of our brain. Like on Inside Out, right? That they're moving like we're almost doing that. And it's this otherness to the body. Um, and I don't think I started to understand that that's the default way of thinking for the average woman, until I started to think that way, a little bit of this more merger between the way you think and feel in your heart and your body's experience. Right. And that's how you ever get present. So if you're truly present in a situation, what you've done, I think, is merged mind, heart and body and won and boom. It's like a blankness. Um, and so I think, though, taking a second to talk about for all of us, like where I was when I was getting divorced at 30 years old and, um, my body had betrayed me like I was mad at it, and I spent a lot of my life being mad at my body for being a little bit too soft in the tummy and like, or not being a fast runner or wanting things it wasn't supposed to want and supposed to in quotes supposed to want and, you know, still having those wants even though they were really inconvenient. Like wanting a bigger life, wanting to feel a certain kind of way and not and then not being able to ignore it either. Right. And so how do we get over that as women when we're in this whole new becoming, when really the relationship we've developed with our body is like you're saying, we have to get safe through our bodies. But right now, most of us, I think, for the most part, are just mad at our bodies all of the time. So, like, where do they start with it feeling other? And it's another that we're mad at. Like how do we somehow then get safety in that space? 00:29:58.370 — 00:29:59.130 · Speaker 2 Well, 00:30:00.170 — 00:30:29.190 · Speaker 2 first of all, You have to be able to express that everything that you express so beautifully, a lot of that stays trapped inside. That's something that we're having an actual conversation about. And I'm excited for your listeners. Right. Because this is like, wow, I know so many people can relate to what you just said, but it never goes anywhere. It never goes beyond women's thoughts. Right? So an exercise that I like to do is writing a letter to the body, just that's the very first step. 00:30:29.390 — 00:30:33.910 · Speaker 1 Even just when you're starting to say that, it's making me start to cry dear body. Mhm. 00:30:34.150 — 00:30:40.150 · Speaker 2 You know you can air your grievances, you can apologize. 00:30:40.190 — 00:30:57.949 · Speaker 1 Yeah. My first words were to your body I'm so sorry. I think for me and I think probably for a lot of people it's like that is hard because we all something in us knows that's not the right way to do. And it was a betrayal to do it, but we don't know what else to do. Like for me 00:30:59.460 — 00:32:31.450 · Speaker 1 Recently, like not long ago, I had this moment. I was like, totally in sinking in one. And like, what came up out of me was like, um, being so angry at my body for desire. And I'm just saying every kind to want. And I literally said the words, if I could never want something again, I would fucking do it like I hate to want. And that's what the body does. It wants, it hungers, it craves. And I think that we don't spend most of us who are not Lily Shepard don't spend much of our lives sitting okay with that feeling. Uh, the craving. I wrote a poem one time, Lily, and maybe we can put it in the show notes, but, um, uh, lions don't, um, skip dessert. I think it's what I was called. And just talking about this, like, Um, this lion inside who's, like, hungry for meat. And I'm always the me. My brain, me is like, hush, you are so inconvenient. Like be quiet. Um, and that dichotomy between us and I think that that's where people getting divorced. Like, something in them is starting to listen to that person and listen. Not person that that us, that part of us that we left out of the equation. Because I don't I mean, you don't hear much like telling women to want more. 00:32:31.930 — 00:33:49.760 · Speaker 2 Oh, yeah. I mean, just we could talk the whole time about the societal messages that we receive, right? Not only do you not supposed to want more, if you express wanting more, that means you're not grateful for what you have. It's ridiculous the things that get layered and layered on onto us from children you know of, like not wanting more. Desire your appearance. How your body is to be shaped to be, you know, accepted what you deserve based on what your body looks like. It's ridiculous. And so it does take a lot. And the letter is the first is a very, very first step. But so much comes out because it's never addressed. It's never addressed. And also how much our bodies are just up for others, for others, for others to look at and be deem attractive or unattractive for us to house and feed babies. Um, never for us for pleasure, for our partner, our husband, never for us. It makes me angry when I think about the messages that we receive and how little there is to counteract those things. 00:33:49.800 — 00:34:01.709 · Speaker 1 Oh, it makes me feel so sad. Like I'm sitting here if you're listening to this and I'm just like, so teary. I'm so surprised. Um, but I think, just like, on behalf of all the women and, like, how 00:34:02.910 — 00:35:03.370 · Speaker 1 wrong we feel, generally speaking, like when we connect with the body. I mean, I'm thinking about, like, going back to junior high church, Southern Baptist. Good Lord, lest you think about what your body might want. Right. And the lifetime of unlearning. And I think women in divorce, there's more than likely not in every situation, but in a lot of situations where, you know, there's not like direct abuse and things like that, but like some part of them is saying is it isn't there something more out there for my and they're not completing the sense for this body to experience. Right. And, and we leave off that phrase. And I think that's where a lot of the shame of divorce and stuff comes because like, if you were really dead fucking honest and said, Why Mom and Dad? Why are they getting divorced? Somewhere at the root of it is because I want more. 00:35:04.930 — 00:35:11.450 · Speaker 1 Can you imagine if you told people and they said, well, why are y'all getting divorced? Because I want more. Can you imagine how they would look at you? 00:35:11.490 — 00:35:11.970 · Speaker 2 Mhm. 00:35:12.010 — 00:35:27.450 · Speaker 1 I wouldn't, I'd say, good for you sister. You deserve more. And I think that what we do instead is like, oh well we need a good, we need a good reason. And that reason better be there. Yeah. Oh he better have cheated on you. 00:35:27.570 — 00:35:37.090 · Speaker 2 Right. We and we compare, you know, like. Well but I want more. But but I should really be grateful because I have this and this and this other. 00:35:37.330 — 00:35:37.970 · Speaker 1 Kids are healthy. 00:35:37.970 — 00:35:56.560 · Speaker 2 Right? Right. My kids are healthy, you know. Well, he does work really hard. And we start to go down a hole of, like disqualifying why we want more or we feel like it needs to be justified, or we start saying, well, at least. 00:35:56.640 — 00:35:58.000 · Speaker 1 Oh yes. 00:35:58.040 — 00:36:15.680 · Speaker 2 At least, at least this, you know, at least he does this. Well, it could be worse. You know, he doesn't beat me or, you know, he's gainfully employed or, you know, he is a good dad. You know, we'll find all of the things and won't just make it a complete, full sentence. I want more, period. 00:36:15.920 — 00:36:18.239 · Speaker 1 Well, and just the radical 00:36:19.440 — 00:37:30.430 · Speaker 1 truth of that, if people are really honest listening underneath all of it and all the justifications and all the reasons, aren't you saying that? And it may make you really uncomfortable? Um, and the more uncomfortable we talked in another episode about being triggered, right. And like the more triggered or more uncomfortable that makes you the more opportunity for learning and wisdom in it. Because what if you're really triggered by saying, I want more? And like the idea of saying that to someone makes you want to throw up. Good. There is where you can dive in with some of these things. Like Lily is telling us of owning that. Like, just what if what we did is we put on a post-it note, I want more. And just like. Period. Not because not after, not when I want more period. I just put that on a post-it, like on your work desk, just to remind you every day that that is a complete sentence. And as far as I know, I can speak for Lily. Lily, Lily and I are concerned that alone is enough of a reason. That's it. You want more? Okay. And. 00:37:32.510 — 00:38:06.220 · Speaker 1 I wonder, Lily, in addition to, like, writing the letter, I think that is such a smart idea. Like, even when we talked about, I start to cry like. Dear buddy, I'm so sorry for how ugly I was to you. And I'm so sorry For how I treated you. Like you were, you know, leftover trash in a dumpster full of raccoons. You know, I pushed you when you were tired and how I was mad at you because you had to have C-sections. And I was angry with you that you couldn't breastfeed 00:38:07.900 — 00:39:04.850 · Speaker 1 a man. List could go on. Um, and to say that out loud and deposit it somewhere. Right? Because the body keeps the score. So it knows that you think that right about it. You don't have any other experience in this world except for in your body. So writing that letter, I think, is a huge practical thing that people can do to see, like what's in there. Like if you're anything like me even listening to this, like, what is the sentence? Like, do yourself the favor of doing what Lilly is telling you to do. Take 20 30 minutes on a Friday night. I always think of Friday night is the moment to do this. It's like at the end of the week, everybody else is settled. He's watching some football right now. It's football season when we're recording this or watching football on TV and you can, you know, sit with yourself and do this. So like they've done that lately. Are there other practical things they can do to start to access safety around 00:39:06.130 — 00:39:23.530 · Speaker 1 their body? And because I guess the logic here is you can't align with and start living through your body in a new identity that helps you get there until it feels safe to live in this body. So that's what we're talking about. So like is there is there anything else they need to be doing. 00:39:23.770 — 00:39:39.929 · Speaker 2 Mhm mhm. There is a plethora of things that can be done. I think one of the most practical things right, that I would say, well what is one simple thing that a woman can do that she's trying to reconnect with her body and trying to feel safe in her body, realizing 00:39:41.130 — 00:39:58.990 · Speaker 2 first awareness of like when something is coming up, right? Like, okay, you had an emotional reaction to talking about writing to the letter. Writing the letter to the body. Okay, something's coming up for me, right? For me, this is a simple gesture. I just press down here. It's like. 00:39:59.030 — 00:39:59.550 · Speaker 1 It's out in your. 00:39:59.550 — 00:41:26.100 · Speaker 2 Heart. Yep. And it's just a. And it doesn't need to be, um, this super whatever idea that you have as you're listening of, like, I'm gonna put my hands to my heart and take a deep breath and press. And it's this, this whole, like, woo woo esoteric thing. I promise you that. It's not right. It's something that you can do anywhere. It's simply acknowledging something's coming up for me. I'm honoring that I'm here. I'm present in my body. I'm choosing to feel safe. The end. Okay. It's an acknowledgment because what happens is so many things happen that trigger us, that anger us, that makes us upset. And it just keeps loading on on, on on top. And you wonder why is my jaw so damn tight? Why is my forehead always scrunched up? Why are my shoulders up to my ears? Why is my gut feel crazy? Right? It's because there's never an acknowledgment of all of the things we feel, things in physical sensation. Those things happen. And so just to be able to take a moment and even if it's not hard, maybe, okay, I don't want people looking at me. I'm in my office. I'm pressing my hands to my heart. That feels weird. Okay, press your hands together, right? Just find some small gesture that allows you to feel present in your body and that reminds you it's okay. You know, I'm going to be good. I'm good. 00:41:26.140 — 00:41:33.700 · Speaker 1 Yeah. To me, it's sort of like. Like what I feel is like this, like, rocking. Like you'd rock a baby a little bit like. Hmm. Interesting. Mhm. Yeah. 00:41:34.540 — 00:42:58.280 · Speaker 2 Everyone has their. And sometimes it's something that you already do subconsciously. Right. Because your body is operating. That's how most of your subconscious patterns are running. You don't even know. You know, so sometimes there are things that you might even do that you're not aware that you do, that are self-soothing. I have a bunch of things. I rock a lot. I'm always kind of rubbing my leg. You know, just things that. And I don't care. Right. People a lot of times say, well, don't you feel funny if you press your hands to your heart or if you like, tap here. No. There's so much going on in this world. You think people are worried about me tapping on my arm, trying to create some safety for myself? You know, it's like we got to get out of our own way sometimes with things and do the things that make us feel good and feel safe and feel our right to move forward and not be worrying about what people think. Small things. So just find something. Some. A woman I know. Um, I worked with her and she found it very comforting. She had, like, a stone that she would just have. And it was just like her little, Almost like, you know, Linus in the blanket. A little thing. She's not going to carry a blanket everywhere, but she could put a stone in her head. I have a big in her pocket. And just, like. Okay, she touches it. It it feels good. It. It's a reminder. It, like, brings her back. Okay. I'm good. I'm safe. Let me take a deep breath and move forward with whatever I'm doing. 00:42:58.280 — 00:43:23.800 · Speaker 1 I have this pink. I guess it's a rose quartz about the size of my palm that my friend gave me. And it's by my in my office. If I'm on a zoom and like, I will grab that and it's just the size of my palm and I mean, it does it. I don't I guess I didn't even know I was doing it, but this sort of like centered on something earthy. I mean, to just keep me rooted as I'm going through, like, you know, spreadsheets, blah. Whatever it is that we're working on. 00:43:23.800 — 00:44:17.710 · Speaker 2 And these practices. I can't say enough how they've changed my life. And I know to maybe some women listening like this all seems like, wow, I would I, you know, writing a letter to my body and pressing on my heart. And all of this is new and different to me. And I just want to say, like, I don't know where I would be without a lot of these practices. I was someone that was holding so much through my divorce process, um, and just having small things that I could do, and that connected me to how I'm feeling in the moment. I disregarded it for so many. How I'm feeling. Who gives a shit about how I'm feeling? This is what I have to do, right? And so I just never cared enough to do tiny acts of care for myself. Tiny small things that just made me feel okay. 00:44:17.790 — 00:44:53.860 · Speaker 1 Well, and I think that one of the things when you're getting divorced, if you're the one who initiated it, and even if you aren't, like one of the things that's going to happen is you're going to live in a different set of circumstances and you're going to be a different person. All right. So if you always do what you've always done, you're always going to get what you always got. So it's time through this process. If you don't want to end up bitter, which I'm assuming everybody listening does not want to end up bitter. It's time for some new strategies and techniques to get you through to the other side. You've probably never really thought about this stuff and 00:44:55.340 — 00:45:52.920 · Speaker 1 I welcome you slash I guess foreshadow for you listening that one of the hardest things you're going to do that no one talks about in divorce is get used to feeling good. Now they'll talk to you about the bad and try to get you through survival. And you know, that's what the algorithm will catch because you're worried about feeling bad. And some of you don't even believe me. But I have to tell you, it's actually, at least for me, been a lot more challenging to accept feeling good than it was to weather the bad because I mean work conditioning. I can work hard, I can buckle down, I can batten down the hatches. I can do what needs to be done. I can be hardworking and all those things I can survive. I am tough, I am selfless, like all of that stuff that everyone praises like. Of course, I mean, you can do that. You've already done it. If you have children on this planet, you've already done it. Okay, 00:45:54.160 — 00:46:38.789 · Speaker 1 what? Not as many people are good at doing and I certainly have not been. This is a this is a ten years later still working on it. Thing is, just let it be good. And if you're in the middle of it, you may think, I cannot even I am in the middle of surviving. But some of y'all listening, y'all are on the back end of this. Maybe you can see this as a light at the end of the tunnel, but letting good things happen to you is one exercise you'll have to start. And for me, because here's the thing if you don't let the good in. The good ain't going to get in. And for me, it looked like. And I realized this. And, like spending time with my best friend Kate. Like, I 00:46:40.390 — 00:47:55.340 · Speaker 1 associated pleasure with pain. Like, if something felt good, something bad was about to happen. And not even. It wasn't like, I don't have that sort of doomsday thinking attitude. But there was this bracing and like, I, you know, growing up in church, if you were like, making out with the boy. And that felt good, well, you're surely going to go to hell in five minutes, right? So this idea that good things actually are bad. That was rooted down to the depths of myself. Like, I would have never chosen the best piece of cake at the birthday. Even at my own birthday, I would have always made do and let everybody else have these other things. And so what's been challenging for me in the last year? Two years is just to tell myself, like, just let it be good. Like, don't. Don't search, don't look for problems. Don't look for reasons. Don't try to assure yourself that it's going to be like this forever. For something to be good and for you to enjoy it doesn't mean it has to be permanent. But I think Brené Brown, I know talks about this, um, that the most like the scariest human emotion is joy 00:47:56.420 — 00:49:04.490 · Speaker 1 because we're afraid of that other shoe dropping. Right. So I think that there's the exercise of like the undoing of the shitty stuff, but I'm just going to I'm just going to warn y'all that right after that, for you to achieve this next level of identity, if that woman you say you want to be who it lives in abundance, who has money, who has an amazing partner, who is healthy, who has a lot of fun and great girlfriends and hobbies and all that. The thing is, that shit ain't coming unless you let it in. And probably the nervous system, like the way you work inside yourself. The nervous system is another one of those things people talk about all the time, but they don't slow down and say what it means. It's like just the emotional set point, like how you operate in your day. That part of you is probably not. If you're in the middle of a divorce or going through it, programed to allow all of this good stuff in. So I don't know what you have to say to that for the people who are in that moment where okay, there they understand, like the survival thing there, they're not in the middle of that and they're ready to become, you know, more aligned with that future identity self of them. Like, do you have any thoughts on letting the good in? 00:49:04.690 — 00:49:46.280 · Speaker 2 Best case scenario, that has been life changing for me because like you spoke to, I was always a person that thought, oh, can't let it get too good, because then when it gets bad, it's going to be like a big drop off, and now I'm going to be really hurt. And if I just never have it at all, then, then it doesn't matter, right? But thinking about my life in terms of best case scenario, not work, not in letting go of this idea that I have to plan for the worst and I have to have all these contingency plans. And if this doesn't go the way that I want. What if I just thought everything is going to go the way that I want it to go? That's crazy. That's delusional that, you know what? Maybe. 00:49:46.600 — 00:49:47.040 · Speaker 1 Okay. 00:49:47.040 — 00:49:49.640 · Speaker 2 It's been serving me quite well, right? That many. 00:49:49.640 — 00:49:50.360 · Speaker 1 People could give it a. 00:49:50.360 — 00:49:53.400 · Speaker 2 Shot. That's what I entertain. And you know, 00:49:54.520 — 00:50:23.699 · Speaker 2 I'm not a fool. I know that just because I plan for this, I don't have the final say of how everything is going to turn out. But it's kind of a rewiring of when I think of my life or plans that I want to put in place. Well, let me start thinking of what's the best case scenario, what is the best possible way that this could work out? And that's where I focus my energy. Because a lot of times you're giving so much into 00:50:24.900 — 00:50:42.420 · Speaker 2 under the guise of planning and wanting to be prepared and needing to, you know, armor up and be ready to fight whatever happens. And I get that. But best case scenario, what's so scary about that? Why can't that be a part of it as well? 00:50:42.540 — 00:51:17.340 · Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, it's a different way of thinking, like what's the best case of scenario? And I think I'll have that. Yes, I'll take some more of best case scenario things. I'm literally, as you're saying, this, thinking of some situations where I've been like bracing, um, because I'm really making some big moves in my own life right now. And also, okay, I've been saying, okay, I've literally said the words worst case scenario, probably about half a dozen to a dozen times in the last few days. You know, because my brain, it's like, okay, here's how great this could go. That's obvious. 00:51:18.380 — 00:51:19.540 · Speaker 1 I mean, it's not that obvious. 00:51:19.780 — 00:51:48.850 · Speaker 2 But but, Hannah, what's obvious is you're so brilliant. You're so capable. So why not? If it doesn't go that way, I'm brilliant. I'm capable. I know full well I can figure it out. I don't need to have all this extra. Put all of this thought and energy into what will happen. I know, and I trust that if the worst happens, I got that. But as far as like where my focus and energy and attention is going to go, it's going to go. Best case scenario, because that's what I like. 00:51:48.890 — 00:51:53.810 · Speaker 1 Well, and here's the superpower that divorce people have is we've already faced the worst case scenario. 00:51:54.410 — 00:51:55.250 · Speaker 2 Period. 00:51:55.250 — 00:52:43.840 · Speaker 1 I mean, obviously things can always get worse, of course. But like in general, we've already our marriage fell apart, our family fell apart, our kids went through a bunch of shit, even if the divorce went good. Um, so we've already lived that. So the question would be, have you lived yet? Your best case scenario and like, I guess for me and that I align with that, like where I am now of living in that way And also as we get older, that's one of the benefits of being over 40, right? Is like, okay, I can look back and all the different things that didn't go that great from the outside ended up being for my highest and best outcome. And so I can look at those and be like, you know what? Even if things kind of turned out shitty, you know, shitty in quotes in the moment, what wouldn't have been my choice, actually, that my divorce is the best thing that ever happened to me. I mean, we wouldn't be sitting here having this. 00:52:43.840 — 00:52:44.240 · Speaker 2 Conversation. 00:52:44.240 — 00:53:27.150 · Speaker 1 If I didn't get divorced. Right. Right. And so I there's this Bible verse, right? His ways are not our ways. His thoughts are not our thoughts. And don't let me lose any of you at Bible verse. It's just this idea of like the universe, whatever you believe in, like it's so much bigger than us. And so I take such comfort in that of like, if, you know, it's like that Garth Brooks song, some of God's greatest, greatest gifts or unanswered prayers. I don't know if you remember that from a thousand years ago in the 90s, but I remember, you know, praying when I was in high school that I could marry my high school boyfriend. Oh, man. oh, if only God would do this for me. And we broke up and didn't even, you know, make it beyond that. And looking back now, I'm like, that would have been the worst, you know, the worst possible thing. 00:53:27.190 — 00:53:27.630 · Speaker 2 That's the. 00:53:27.630 — 00:53:28.110 · Speaker 1 Thing. 00:53:28.150 — 00:53:34.389 · Speaker 2 You know, as we sit here and, and I think it's changing for like, our kids, right where it's like 00:53:35.430 — 00:53:51.110 · Speaker 2 my daughter's not thinking about who to marry. You know what I mean? Like the way that some of these roles and the things and the expectations for us, we're so different in high school, and and it was so much more important to 00:53:52.430 — 00:54:39.380 · Speaker 2 be a mother, to start a family, to be loved by someone, to, you know, all of these things. And I just feel like these kids today, I love what I see from them because it feels, I mean, they they have their own issues, right, with screens and things and not getting outside. But as far as, um, not kind of almost being indoctrinated into the goal of life, being a family, right, and being encouraged to find an individual path, I think is kind of cool. And that's something that I definitely see, you know, with my children, because it was it was like, oh my God. And I wasn't even a big like, I can't wait to be a mom but get married. Oh my God. Yes of course. How validating. 00:54:39.420 — 00:54:39.780 · Speaker 1 That was. 00:54:39.780 — 00:54:41.100 · Speaker 2 21. You know. 00:54:41.380 — 00:54:44.060 · Speaker 1 You're right. And I think that that's. 00:54:46.260 — 00:56:50.790 · Speaker 1 What we get to do. I mean, to model for them, right? Um, I think so many women don't live a life that they would wish that their kids would live. So, like, how would you wish for your kids to live? Well, I'd want them to be thinking about what's the best thing that could happen and follow their dreams and all that. So we tell them all those words. But then are you modeling doing that with your own life? So like, if you need a reason to do this, that you wanting more isn't enough. If that's not enough, then one reason could be so that you model for your children a life that's lived out loud, that's lived on purpose. Um, and I think in talking with you, Lily and I know that this is the work that you do with women. It's this giving ourselves permission to want and to get, ultimately, is to want a thing. And then to get that thing. Because I think it takes both. To me, there was this wanting to admit to myself that I wanted something, meant that I didn't have it currently, and that felt, um, comfy. And then I got a little bit used to that. And then it was about, okay, when the thing shows up, the happiness, the joy, the health, the money, the esteem award, whatever the things are that I wanted as they showed up to allow them in is the journey. And I think that's the mirror side that there's a lot of play on figuring out what you want, but I don't think there's the the most play with allowing it in. And then like next level judo for anybody who's on this part of the journey, what I found is the things I thought I wanted, and then I let them in. And then, lo and behold, once they showed up, they really didn't mean all that much to me anymore because I didn't need them to prove my worth, which, like, I wanted the money or I wanted the awards or whatever the things were in the beginning. And then by the time they I let him in and they got here, I was like, yeah, I'm good. I'm good with you. 00:56:51.230 — 00:57:25.300 · Speaker 2 What a gift to be free of of needing that right? Innate worth, your innate value as a woman to this world, whether or not you have a husband, whether or not you are a mother, whether or not you have a lot of money, whether or not you have awards and accolades, and we get very far removed from that. And to this idea that we're not. We need these things to be worthy of. It's ridiculous. You have inherent worth as a human being. 00:57:25.340 — 00:57:48.620 · Speaker 1 Yeah. There was I did a webinar one time, and this was not even the point of the webinar, but a gal. And it was about the my confident divorce stuff and helping people get prepared to, to get divorced without losing their kids money and sanity. And there was a woman in there. We were just talking about planning and getting ready, and somehow she brought up something about, well, I don't know if I deserve 00:57:49.820 — 00:58:34.250 · Speaker 1 a different life. I sort of like, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold the phone. And other women were chiming in and I said, with all my heart. And I say it to anybody listening now you are worthy because you exist, period. Not because of some utility or some usefulness, or some beauty or any of those other things. You are worthy because you exist and because you exist and you're worthy. You get to have good stuff. Like what do you feel? Dear reader listener, when I say to you, you are worthy because you exist and that means you get to have good stuff. What sentence comes up in your mind? 00:58:35.410 — 00:59:01.370 · Speaker 1 Is it? Oh, must be nice for you, Hannah. Oh, but they're still, you know, starving children in the world. Oh, but they're still war. Oh, baby, you don't understand what I've done. Like, whatever the rest of that sentence is, I think is such a gift for you to sit in for a minute. Um. Lily. What? Whenever I say that, what sentence comes up for you? Like you're worthy because you exist and you get to have good things. What do you hear? 00:59:01.410 — 00:59:20.160 · Speaker 2 I've. I've completely accepted that at this point in my life. Yeah. Um, it's been a journey to get there and uncovering a lot of, um, beliefs that I realized didn't originate with me. Right. There's there's a lot that 00:59:21.240 — 00:59:58.360 · Speaker 2 when we start to think about beliefs that we have or values and, like, did this actually come from my own heart? From my own mind, or is this just what I saw modeled or what just, you know, in my family was kind of passed down or what I was taught and taking a minute to identify all that. So when I hear that now, I'm like, hell yeah, you know, but it took a while to get there. It took a long while, a long while to get there. I'm 44 for you listeners, so. And I'm just getting there, but it's a great place to be. 00:59:58.640 — 01:00:11.910 · Speaker 1 It's an option. Because here's the thing. Lily and I both were young, married gals who got divorced through messy situations, and both of us had no money and felt like pieces of shit. Is that fair? 01:00:11.950 — 01:00:12.510 · Speaker 2 Mhm. 01:00:13.110 — 01:01:01.850 · Speaker 1 And now when I say the citizens out loud, I'm worthy because I exist and I get to have good things. What I hear is. Mhm. That's actually true. So I think there's some function of doing the work in quotes. You know thinking about these things and I've said the quote a million times, a million times I've, I've said it once. You know, the degree to which a person can grow is directly proportional to the amount of truth they can accept about themselves without running away. So, like, that's what I think of healing and growth is like, can you see this truth? Like if there is another part of that sentence that comes up for you. Can you sit with that for a minute? And probably if you do, you probably won't die. Like that's what I needed somebody to tell me back then that a icky feeling, that yucky thought it won't kill you. 01:01:01.890 — 01:01:05.890 · Speaker 2 Mm. Well, we run from it. We run from. 01:01:05.890 — 01:01:25.050 · Speaker 1 It. But it's like doing your family. Doing your taxes. Like, just get it done. Like, just sit in it for a minute. And it's power. Is your fear of it? It's power is your delay of it. But when you actually sit in it. Every storm runs out of rain. And you can actually deal with the thing in front of you, right? Yeah. 01:01:25.090 — 01:01:52.290 · Speaker 2 But it's scary. Hanna. I know. You know, uncovering those. Like, really thinking about that shit when you haven't your whole life. I mean, really uncovering the layers and sitting with my body. Why have I been this way to my body? Why do I feel like I don't deserve nice things? Why do I feel like I need X, Y, and Z to be able to let good things into my life? I mean, those are the kind of questions that can rip you open. 01:01:52.330 — 01:03:17.310 · Speaker 1 Well, and here's the thing. Ladies, ladies, ladies, you are going to be faced with these exact thoughts post-divorce, if you will let it happen because your life will get quieter. Like you're just not going to have another person next to you on the couch every night, at least probably some portion of your time. Your children won't even be there. And it's going to be you and you. And you can either settle in and do the work that little and I are talking about, even if it's scary and sitting with it. Or you can mask it with a million other distractions. But here's the thing if you choose not to sit a minute with what's happening, working with someone like Lily and the coaching that she does for executive women to do this exact work. If you don't sit and do that, then the most likely outcome is for you to make the exact same mistake all over again. To marry from pygmy energy, to marry your daddy and all of his, you know, a version of your daddy and all of his problems to marry, to make yourself feel whole, to marry, to make yourself worthy of existing, right? If you don't own these lessons in this barren land post-divorce and like learn to grow a crop from the dry desert, then you are most likely destined to run back around that track again. Right? 01:03:17.350 — 01:03:21.270 · Speaker 2 Facts. Yeah, you. There's there's no way around it. 01:03:21.310 — 01:03:47.030 · Speaker 1 Yeah. It's not over. Under. It's only through that little phrase. I'm gonna let y'all all have it. Not over. Under. It's only through. I say that to myself. It's sort of like getting fit. It ain't over. Under. It's only through. There's only one way to do it. You have to move your own butt. Period. Right? You can't delegate it. You can't delete it. You can't skip it. Whatever. Same thing with this work. The way out is in. 01:03:48.030 — 01:03:49.990 · Speaker 2 And it's so much better on the other side. 01:03:50.030 — 01:04:05.900 · Speaker 1 It is. It's worth it. I mean, just let these two gals who've been in the tar pit tell you. And we're trustworthy. You can believe us. We're not like Instagram gals. You don't know. Selling you some bill of goods. I ain't trying to sell you nothing. 01:04:07.220 — 01:04:31.380 · Speaker 1 It's the truth. I just want people to live lives that don't medium suck. I think most women. And I think actually most men like. I think this is probably true for men. I just don't know how to talk to them about their own journey of this. But it's just not my lane. But most people are content to live a life that like, medium, medium sucks. Maybe it's not the worst thing ever, but it's definitely not their best case scenario. 01:04:31.420 — 01:04:36.419 · Speaker 2 Yeah. Oh man. I think most people you're I think you're right. I think most people are 01:04:37.780 — 01:04:48.700 · Speaker 2 conditioned to do that. And hell no is what I have to say about that. Like hell no. What would happen? What is. And that's another exercise to think about. 01:04:49.980 — 01:05:27.450 · Speaker 2 What is it about living the fullest life that I. Why does that feel like so far off? Like, oh, that's for other people. Hannah, that's great for you. You know that. I couldn't do that. Why? Why not? What is wrong? We are. We have the time between birth and death. And we don't know when death is coming. So why not want to have the most full experience that you possibly can? And full is relative. It doesn't mean the busiest are going on the most vacations, or whatever it means to you to be full and feel worthy, and to have pleasure and to have joy. Why? 01:05:27.530 — 01:05:38.130 · Speaker 1 Not that I'm certainly every single day trying to do that. You know, I think that every I think people theoretically agree with that idea when we're sitting here talking. 01:05:38.130 — 01:05:39.250 · Speaker 2 About the road, though. 01:05:39.290 — 01:06:34.120 · Speaker 1 When is that calendar and the next zoom invite? That's me. Like everything that gets piled into the schedule, my life is not going the way that I need and want it to go if there isn't white space in my calendar. But this week, this particular week, there ain't any. Right. So I mean, drinking my own I need to drink my own Kool-Aid. The name of the show is not saving it for later. And actually you would be. I have to say this like, truly Lily, you are an inspiration for not saving it for later. I remember you said to me later is a lie. And I remember a brunch we were at with our our very darling, wonderful friends, and they were going on and on about their business at that, at that. And you were just sitting there cool as a cucumber, not activated. Not worry. You know, you, you know, weren't running the same situation, but still you said, where are you in all of that? But are you having a good time? 01:06:35.360 — 01:06:54.100 · Speaker 1 I remember that little like ear weren't like you catching me. Like your mama catching you by the ear, and I. And like, hashtag heard. I hear you. And I think about that still often about the where am I in this? Did I write my own self out of my own life? 01:06:54.140 — 01:06:54.580 · Speaker 2 Hmm. 01:06:55.220 — 01:07:07.500 · Speaker 1 So when it comes to not saving it for later, we ask everybody, you know what that brings up for them? Like what they think about. So I don't know. What's your response to the name of the show, this idea of us saving things for later. What do you have to say? 01:07:07.540 — 01:07:36.980 · Speaker 2 I just love it so much. I, I love it so much. I am just here for women to fully express themselves and be in full expression. So I am going to always be that friend. That's like, yes, get the expensive bottle of wine. Yes, wear the dress. That is probably a little bit too fancy for this event. Yes, book the trip. Do the thing. I mean, because like I said, we have this time birth and death. We don't know when the death is coming, so 01:07:38.580 — 01:08:08.850 · Speaker 2 maximize it, you know, maximize it. Why save anything for later? Because later is a lie, right? One you just might not be walking this earth. But two even if you are, things happen. Things come up later. Doesn't come well, now something else is put in my path. And so it's a lie. Really. What you have is now so I am. I love the name of the show, and I love being the friend that is always supporting my friends in and not saving it for later and doing the thing. 01:08:08.890 — 01:08:30.890 · Speaker 1 There's nothing I know Lily Shepherd is just saving for later. She is all in going. Um, okay, now what about is there anything lately you've listened to watch read? Um, that's shaken you like a book? Uh, TV show, an article, an Instagram meme that's just kind of shaken your way of thinking. 01:08:31.450 — 01:08:31.890 · Speaker 2 Hmm. 01:08:34.089 — 01:09:47.029 · Speaker 2 What has shaken me? Well, there was a post that I saw a couple days ago, and this woman was able to articulate what I felt, but never really thought about why, and she was saying that when she comes into professional settings or anywhere that she has to speak or do anything, she's fully about wearing dresses because she realized, like the energy of wearing pants and like having a tight, you know, how it feels when like, stuff is like digging into you and it's not comfortable and it doesn't feel right. And she was like, this is not letting my feminine energy be radiant at what it needs to be. And I was like, huh? Oh, that makes sense to me. I would have never said that. I'm just like, yeah, a dress is easy. You put it on. It's one piece of clothing. Simple. But when she was articulating like why she felt and the way that you hold yourself, your posture, the way that you sit and a dress is different than how you sit in pants and all of these things. And she just went down the little list of why this was like a practice for her. And I was like, no, that's that's I love it. As I read it, I was like, yes. She said something like, you know, drop a little flower if you agree. And I was like, yes, I. 01:09:47.029 — 01:09:48.029 · Speaker 1 Do, I do. I have. 01:09:48.069 — 01:10:03.390 · Speaker 2 Several flowers. Right. And now and you just put words to what I've kind of always felt but would have never, I never really thought about, well, why do I like to wear dresses or things that flow on my body in certain situations? And she was able to say it. So it was kind of cool, I think. 01:10:03.430 — 01:10:36.910 · Speaker 1 I love that as I sit here and a dress, I'm all about the dress for whatever the situation, for me, I'm definitely just thinking about AI, like all the time and all the things and all its potential and what it's what's happening in our world. I mean, that's what shaking me at the moment. I just, I went to a legal conference where they were just talking about the future AI and law and all of the amazing opportunities and how much better and more efficient and more effective it's going to make helping people, um, get access to the legal help they need. So that's definitely what I'm. 01:10:36.950 — 01:10:41.630 · Speaker 2 I love it. So you're in the you're in the excited about AI. Yes. Okay. 01:10:41.710 — 01:10:45.300 · Speaker 1 I mean and I think everybody else should be. If you can't beat him, join him. It's coming. 01:10:45.300 — 01:10:46.100 · Speaker 2 Right? 01:10:46.540 — 01:10:48.300 · Speaker 1 Regardless. Um. 01:10:48.340 — 01:10:48.900 · Speaker 2 It's here. 01:10:48.940 — 01:11:23.980 · Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah, it's it's here. Law is a little slower. Um, it's happening, but I think that the entire legal landscape is going to look completely different in five years. So it's just like my brain is definitely in that spot. Okay. With that? I would say that's been my dominant thought is kind of the same thing. So one thing I've realized is that we seem to have like for days or a week or whatever, like one thing that's on our mind that we're really thinking about, and for me, that is AI in the future, uh, of all of that, do you have is there been a dominant thought for you recently that's just like in the forefront of your mind you've been thinking about? 01:11:24.020 — 01:12:52.909 · Speaker 2 Yes, I have, and and matter of fact, I'm going to record a podcast episode about it because I, I as I was thinking about it, I was like, there's a lot to uncover here. And the thought that has been sitting with me is like, why do and I'll speak for myself. I won't say women, but why do I? Why have I viewed the word leverage as a dirty word? Like, why do I feel like that's something negative or something I don't want to do? Um. It's interesting. I had a conversation with someone who's like a mentor to me, and she's a bestselling author, and and she has tons of people on her social media. And she goes, you know, you need to leverage your face. That's what she said to me. And that completely took me back. Like, wait, what? And she was like, no, you know, she was like, you're attractive. Leverage that you need to be making face to camera videos. And I was like, but no, but it's not about my face. It's about the work and it's about the message. And she was like, okay, yes. And and if you have this perceived advantage, you need to leverage that. And it's the conversation has just been sitting with me of like, well, she's absolutely right. And more beyond. Just like, okay, you leverage your face. But I started to think about it in a lot of different areas. You know, my network, um, you know, leveraging 01:12:54.310 — 01:13:29.910 · Speaker 2 experiences that I've had or social proof of things that I've done. I was at a conference and I mentioned after the conference was over, we were talking about music and everything that I had danced with Beyonce. And the organizer was like, wait, what? Like, you didn't say that you were just on my podcast. I would have put that in the title. Why? Why are we just finding this out? You need to leverage that. So I feel like it's been coming up a few times for me. And so I'm really just sitting with. Mm. Why is it that that's something that I've seen as negative or been hesitant to do. 01:13:29.950 — 01:13:34.270 · Speaker 1 It's so interesting. Like you've got your things you've got down pat. For me the word leverage, I'm like, 01:13:35.710 — 01:14:13.860 · Speaker 1 I'm going to use every tool available to me to get where I'm. I mean, it used to feel survival energy, like even as I'm saying that I'd like to get where I needed to get to. Um, and I think of that one as like just the tools and opportunities out there and available. I know there's always more room to do more with that, but taking these connections and I don't mean necessarily connections with other people, but just the available connections out there in the ether, um, and putting them together to accomplish some other thing. I mean, that's a part. Now what? Where can people follow your podcast? I want to listen to this one. So tell them about that on Spotify. 01:14:13.900 — 01:14:16.020 · Speaker 2 Body intelligence with Lily Shepherd. 01:14:16.060 — 01:15:07.090 · Speaker 1 Okay, awesome. Lily is sentence for sentence, one of the most wise, insightful, thoughtful people. And here's the thing. I can tell y'all she lives this out. It's not BS. It is lived in her own life. Um, you know her book, Pleasure Principles for Driven women. Right. Mhm. Um, some of the stuff in there was like this is I've never heard anybody say it like this and it's life changing. And I know for me, like even some of just the posts that you share, I've said to you or like I get an email and I'll email you back. Like those emails that people sent out the marketing was I'm like, literally, this was really good. Like, this is amazing. So y'all are going to want to do all that with her. Um, okay. Last question for you. So if you could only give one piece of advice to the women out there of divorce land, what would you tell them? 01:15:07.130 — 01:15:09.890 · Speaker 2 Do your best to focus on who you're becoming. 01:15:11.210 — 01:15:43.960 · Speaker 2 Do your best to make that the focus throughout the process. Um, use it as an anchor, even in the really tough spots, right? Even if you're not all the way through the process and you're in some some spots that are really tough and really tricky. Try to just do your best to focus on who it is that you are becoming as opposed to, um, who it is that you're leaving behind because you are leaving a version of yourself behind. 01:15:44.000 — 01:15:47.840 · Speaker 1 Mm. And the life you want will cost you the life you got. 01:15:49.440 — 01:15:56.799 · Speaker 1 And I think for me, you know, have. And I would just add to that. Right. Like or you know, say additionally 01:15:58.320 — 01:17:09.750 · Speaker 1 that there are different layers of this because who you if you're in the thick of divorce and it's really shitty, who you can envision for yourself is, let's say, you know, five steps forward. And then once you get those five steps and you've collapsed, that and you are her, guess what? The top of the mountain shows you that you're really just at the bottom of the next one. And some people can say that's discouraging. Like, no, that means you keep climbing to the next, the next space. Like the person I am now in the life I have now, the me in the middle of my divorce would have never imagined Pageant, I would have never dreamed that I would have more money than my bills cost every month. Literally, I thought that was for other people. I didn't think that was the me. I'm not a rich person. Like, I always just thought I was going to have to work and have just kind of enough money to make it work and always have a little bit of credit card debt and always just kind of rob Peter to pay. Paul. That was, you know, my life experience. That's just how I thought it was going to go. So like, I couldn't go from the depths of divorce to wishing to be a good millionaire. Okay. So like, give yourself some grace to to who you can imagine. Now, that's the thing is, it's such good news that ain't it. 01:17:09.950 — 01:17:10.670 · Speaker 2 Exactly. 01:17:10.710 — 01:18:27.130 · Speaker 1 Because the the, um, Robert Frost poem, right, of two words diverged in a yellow wood, and one of it talks about and way leads on to way. Because once you take this fork in the road, y'all, way leads on to way. Like each new step in your journey. You know, it's like the Butterfly Effect movie. It just continues to sprout and new things continue to come up. And then this new version of you, you. If you saw on the street today, you would not believe it's you, right? Like with all of those things, that's possible. I only can tell you that now because it's literally happened to me. If somebody would have told me that. But like by now, hopefully y'all trust me and believe me, like I'm telling you the best possible life you can imagine right now, you can go beyond that because you don't have the necessary experience to even conceptualize it yet. And then as you get along the path, new doors open up to you and new experiences and new journeys, new relationships, new abundance, new pleasure, all of that opens up and you're like, oh, I didn't know it could be like this. Well, if this is possible, could that be possible? And that's the journey. I think we can ask people 20 years older than us, but like, I think that's the journey for the rest of life. 01:18:27.130 — 01:18:27.360 · Speaker 2 If. 01:18:27.840 — 01:19:03.440 · Speaker 1 As if it could be this good. Could it get that good? And I'm listening to what you're saying, Lily, where I am right now and these big decisions. And like big, this big universe and world I'm working on building of, like, stepping into that person. Right? And I'm doing it all over again. And it feels shaky and it feels unsure and like. But me, what do you like? But do you understand? I'm from East Texas. Like, I don't think you, you know, the same stuff comes up all over again. I'm just a lot more adept. I'd be like, oh, okay, I see you, I see you limiting beliefs. Welcome. Have a seat. 01:19:03.480 — 01:19:03.920 · Speaker 2 Mhm. 01:19:04.000 — 01:19:17.240 · Speaker 1 We're still going I like it. I'm. I'm calling this straight in. We're doing best case scenario. All right. That's what we're going to leave you with. Everybody who's listening to this show. On this show we do best case scenario. 01:19:17.640 — 01:19:20.920 · Speaker 5 Yeah, yeah. Thanks, Lily. Thank you Hannah.