KIMBER.txt

English (US)

01:00:00.040 — 01:05:15.999

I believe that in order to be a good wife, a good mother, a good daughter, a good sister, that I had to self-sacrifice and in the process lost myself. I got married when I was 22, and I didn't know who I was at 22. So as my kids got older and I started having a little bit of a life for myself, things just didn't feel right.

I'd go to these. I was the boss's wife, and I'd go to these big, fancy formal events and show up with a smile on my face. And on the outside I looked fine. My life looked perfectly fine, but inside I was disappearing and I didn't know who I was, what I wanted, who I wanted to be. 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 is right. Later when you finally stop caring what they think. Well, I'm done waiting. I'm Hannah Henry 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.

Welcome, everybody. I'm very excited for you to meet our guest today, Kimber Hardwick. She is an author, a speaker, a trainer, a teacher. I mean, y'all are in for a treat. I met Kimber at a conference with Todd and Cole Witty, who've both been on the show before, and I heard Kimber speak and talk about emotions, and I was captivated.

I was sort of in the back of the room to start, and by the end I had, like, moved up to the front on the floor with my notepad, taking in every single word. So, Kimber, thank you so much for being here. You're welcome. Thanks for having me. Yeah, I'm thrilled, you know, and and I didn't even know whenever I was listening to you, I just thought, okay, we need to bring these concepts to the women of divorce land over here.

I didn't even know how much your story is. The story? kind of of a lot of us. And, um. Y'all. Kimber was married, I think 30 years. Over 30 years. Over 30 years. Um, and got divorced and has really had this whole awakening. So I think she can talk to us about, um, a little bit about that story, and some of that just thinks she's figured out and knows that we can put into practice in our life starting immediately.

Right now, I think of the the talk that we had learning about Joy. Uh, I think of that often. So I'm going to be excited. Nice. Well, it's interesting that speech or that talk that I gave, I had 20 minutes. It's now turned into 21 hour modules. Oh, yeah. There's a lot. I tried to package so much information in that 20 minutes.

And yeah, it's there's a lot of information around emotions. Yeah. Well, and I think that what's so important about that is we're not really taught much, if anything, about emotions or dealing with emotions. I mean, what I ever learned about emotions were like. Shh. Don't be so loud. Crying, upset, mad, angry, whatever.

Any emotion expressed out loud was supposed to kind of go away. Or we were taught to repress. Or we were also taught to ruminate. You know, by watching, I know I'm watching my mother, um, and other family members, you know, they would create a team and get people on, on, on their side and they would ruminate and retell the story over and over and over again.

And neither one of those is really feeling our emotions. Yeah. Well, and I know that's that's one of the things we're going to talk about feeling versus feeding in a little bit. But you know, do you want to start and tell us a little bit about about you, you know, you were in this 30 year marriage and stayed in it for a long time, had four kids.

Um, and in your books, I know you talk a lot about that, but do you want to kind of catch us up so we can learn a little bit about you and get some context for our content today. Yeah. Um, I was married around 36 years. I think from the time, you know, the fine, the divorce was final, and it wasn't an easy road. It took five, five years, I think, for the divorce to be final man.

Um, my timing was my timing, but it didn't resonate with my children. And so it caused some, some issues with my kids. They were very upset with me. Um, we've. Are they grown? Were they all grown? They were all grown. They were all grown. And one of the the things that I did, um, and actually is part of what led to writing this book was I was rewriting stories not from a place of a victim, but from a place of empowerment.

And the story I used to tell was I stayed in my marriage for the for the kids. And when I rewrote that story, I realized I stayed in that marriage as long as I did because I didn't know what else to do. Mm. And because by staying in the other story, I was the victim or I became the villain if I left. But by just really saying I didn't know what to do, I really did not know what to do.

I had all these conditioned beliefs about not giving up about around divorce. My folks were divorced. I knew how challenging it was for the kids, and I just I finally just reached a breaking point and I couldn't take it anymore. And

01:05:17.640 — 01:07:09.420

the way I told my kids probably was not the best, but it's all I need to do is through an email. I didn't want to have the conversation four times that I was what I was doing. So, um, so I got out of the marriage. It was a long process of, you know, as you know, with divorce and when there's money involved. And there was no fortunately, we didn't have the custody issue.

It was just financial. And, um, him not wanting to let go. Well, and can I, can we pause for a second? We skipped right to it. So, like. So you're in this marriage for, you know, 36 years. By the time it was all said and done, the kids are grown and gone and and and I think what you were talking about is like staying in this story of I'm the victim, he's the bad guy.

Um, and in some ways, you know, in these conversations we've had and even looking back on the way, I used to talk about the story or felt about my marriage and my divorce, too. It's like in some ways it's easier in the sense of you don't have to take that full responsibility for the outcome of your life. It's just sort of like, well, shrug I mean, things shrug, you know, um, this sucks.

And my life medium sucks. And this I know for myself, it was like, this is grown up life. Life is not a fairy tale. Um, this is just kind of how it goes. Especially, you know, I know you had four kids relatively close together. I had three kids close together. And when your mom in for so long, you know, you sort of get into these survival patterns.

And so was your marriage. One that, um. And I think I'd read that you talk about it like this with of this sort of becoming invisible inside of the marriage, or is it what was it that you sort of tolerated all this time? And then and then there became this sort of enough point, but like, what was it like for 30 years?

I

01:07:10.700 — 01:12:54.359

believed that in order to be a good wife. And Glennon Doyle talks about this, one of her books, in order to be a good wife, a good mother, a good daughter, a good sister that I had to self-sacrifice and in the process lost myself and in who I was. And I think it probably started even before then, back in, in grade school and, and conforming to, you know, the, the system of how we're supposed to be.

We graduate college and my age, we went to college to get our MREs. Basically. I did that even even in my age. Right. Yeah. And so I really I got married when I was 22, and I didn't know who I was at 22. And so as my kids got older and I started having a little bit of a life for myself, things just didn't feel right.

I'd go to these. I was the boss's wife, and I'd go to these big, fancy formal events and show up with a smile on my face. And on the outside I looked fine. My life looked perfectly fine. But inside I was. I was disappearing and I didn't know who I was, what I wanted, who I wanted to be, who I was. You know, all all those things.

And I had been on antidepressants for 15 years, and I knew that in order to make a rash decision about my life, I needed to be off of the medication. Irrational decision. Irrational? Yeah. Or so you said, a rash. Yeah, yeah. Not make a rash decisions. Okay. Make a rational decision that I needed to be feeling because I hadn't felt, I thought for 15 years, but I don't know that I ever really learned how to feel prior to that.

So once they got off the antidepressants and then I began to navigate this whole world of feelings. And because while you were on and that's when you were in the the sort of throes of raising kiddos. Yeah, basically. Yeah, I just numb. I was just now I see videos of myself back then and it's like I'm on autopilot.

You know, there's there's no joy in me. There's I'm just doing what needs to be done, what should be done, showing up how I'm supposed to show up. And I used to have a hard time seeing myself on video and seeing photos of myself and what I realized because I wasn't being authentic. And so something in me knew that that was not really Kimber.

And so now, as I've become, you know, stepped into my shining and become more authentic, I don't have a problem seeing myself on video. It's kind of it's actually pretty cool. The difference? Yeah. Well, and I think what you described and I think just staying there for a minute, if you're willing, um, describes the experience of so many women, especially mothers.

I'm not saying it isn't true for other people, but, um, because the kids have a way of gluing you to the situation. And, I mean, you brought up one of the patron saints of mine, Glennon Doyle, and totally relate to that idea. I mean, I think that, you know, all you have to do is go to the greeting card aisle on Mother's Day and see what society values in a mom.

You know, you do everything for me. You gave up everything for us. Um. We are your world. Uh, even like my. There's this one book my daughter has. Um. And one of the lines in there is something like. You are mama's everything. And I, I literally at this point, this awakened, you know, more healed versus me.

I will not say that, um, I'm not going to teach these kids that they're everything. I care a lot about them, and they matter so much to me, but I am not enmeshed with them. Um, for me, my divorce and the real trauma and pain I went through with custody taught me that by far, I didn't really have another choice.

Um, because if I would have remained enmeshed with him as a mother, I would have, um, ceased to exist, I guess. But for a lot of women, I think, especially when you've got a bunch of kids together, you're really in this, like, survival mode. And it sounds like to do survival mode. You, you know, had the support of antidepressants at the time to get through.

I totally understand why, um, people, you know, maybe either obviously it makes sense if they need it clinically, physiologically, but then also even just situationally, it's real hard having a bunch of kids, um, while you're barely just not a kid yourself. You know, if you're getting married, I think I think one of the things that helped me is I knew that as my younger kids were getting ready to graduate, that my whole life had been revolving around my children and then leaving the nest.

If I didn't have something outside of them, I was going to lose myself. So I did. I opened up a wellness center. I taught yoga, so I had a little something that was mine. I've seen women who they throw everything they have into their children, and the empty nest syndrome hits them, like about, you know, like a brick.

Well, because they outsource identity. And I talk about it all the time about a derivative identity or an independent identity, and when it's derivative of someone or something else and that thing goes, um, that can really disrupt you. And so I think that, you know, that was smart. You saw that that coming.

Um, and instead of letting letting hit you start trying to do some things and, you know, and you mentioned your kids not, you know, a little bit about what was their beef or like, what was their it was it was the way I told them. None of them were surprised, but it was the timing and the way I told them. Okay. Like the email part?

Yeah. They didn't appreciate getting it in an email, but things had escalated to a point, and I just I wasn't thinking soundly. I would say I was just like, I was

01:12:55.680 — 01:14:03.040

I was just done. You know, I had reached my breaking point. And so and I knew they were all not in the same place. So I couldn't sit down and have a conversation with all four of them. And I didn't have the capacity to have the call or the conversation four times. Yeah. So I wrote an email and it was not received.

Well, yeah, we've moved past that, thankfully. Correct. Um. He's remarried. I'm remarried. Um, one of the things that that came up for me when you were talking about that, and I'm sure you probably did. I wore the Wonder Woman cape like a badge of honor. And I loved it when people would say, oh, you are just Wonder Woman.

You're. I don't know how you do it. Yeah, yeah. And I don't want to wear that cape anymore. So I put that cape down a long time ago because the idea of handling everything, taking care of everything, holding everything that wasn't mine, just was draining on me. Well, and I think, you know, what could be helpful to people who are listening to this, who are still in a marriage or in a place in life and they're listening or, you know, something's piqued their interest because they're like, okay, I,

01:14:04.200 — 01:14:30.520

I can relate to what Kimber is talking about. Like, what did that look like or feel like, if you remember back then, like, how would somebody know that they're in this sort of like, you know, autopilot, um, coasting, invisible phase of life? Like, do you remember what that felt like or looks like? So maybe they could identify it in themselves?

I felt like I didn't have a choice. I felt like

01:14:31.560 — 01:17:03.789

I was just doing what I was supposed to do, but I felt empty inside. There was not I. It's not that I didn't enjoy doing those things for my kids, and it I did as the kids were grown and gone and I was still kind of navigating, you know, who I was. I didn't know who I was. And so that invisible piece was, I guess I felt only visible when I was doing something, when I was offering a helping hand, when I was solving something, when I was in the midst of everything and it was around everybody else and not around myself.

And to some it looks selfish. What I've done, it doesn't feel selfish because if I don't take care of myself, who else is going to take care of me? Well, that's the biggest bunch of bullshit, um, ever. Is this idea that doing anything for yourself is selfish? I mean, I guess if you look up the definition of the word, it's probably something like to put oneself in, in, um, priority or something, right?

I would think of I don't know. I don't know what the definite would be. Interesting. Yeah. Interesting to see. But it's like I just what I was I was talking about this this weekend at our my Confident Life. We had a brunch kind of a kickoff thing for our women's group and just this idea that women do. And, you know, I don't know what men do.

I don't know how they think. But for women at least, it's like, you know, always doing everything for everybody else and for their kids and for their spouse and whatever. And then what happens is we model that for our kids and then, you know, you know, the boys expect it or that's how good moms are. That's it gets in their psyche.

The girls learn that this is what moms do and then they do the same thing. So it's like literally when does the merry go round end? Like when does you just think about it? It's like, when does anybody actually get to enjoy their own life as it occurs to them? Not I mean, that's that's the basic underpinning, like what we're talking about of this show, not saving it for later of like, wait a minute.

I'm basically put my entire life on layaway. Especially my joy on layaway, right? Like, I would worry about that later whenever XYZ thing occurred. And I think for me, it was the most acute when the kids were were small. And that's when I was I was still married, I, we were I got divorced or I was told the kids about the divorce when my oldest was six.

So they were like six, four and three like, oh, they all have birthdays right in the spring. So they would turn in different ages at that point. Um, and

01:17:05.069 — 01:18:52.050

I, I remember for me, the way it looked, this feeling of sort of in the wrong life or somewhere, I took a wrong turn. And what was happening, you know, was I wasn't looking forward to anything anymore. I'd already done the thought experiment of like, okay, by that point I was going to law school. It's like, okay, so then I'm gonna go to law school, I'm gonna do good in school.

And once I do good in school, I'm gonna get a good job. And once I get a good job, I'm going to make a bunch of money. And once I make a bunch of money, I'm going to save it. And then one day I'm going to retire, and then I'm going to retire, and then I'm going to go to the beach or something, and then he'll be there, and then I'll have more time with him.

And I'm like, oh God, I already did the exercise of like, oh shit, I don't want the thing I'm working toward. And I, I, I don't want anything. A sense of not longing or wanting anything. This blankness. And that scared me. Um, and it even now, it just it hurts my heart to think of that and to think of how many women are in that space, like, um, what I would say is a lot of women just spend their whole life living a medium suck life.

Like maybe nothing is acutely, terribly physically abusive. Gotta get out right now. And it's not joyful. It's sort of like this in between, um, fate, this not face, but like, I don't know, state of being. And so I wonder, Kimber, if there was any particular moment where you sort of woke up to that reality of like, wait a minute, what is this life like?

What the hell? Was there a wake? There were probably several of those moments. Okay. But I want to go back to what you said about what we're teaching our kids. Yeah. My son had just gotten married, and I

01:18:53.210 — 01:27:32.650

was concerned about him treating his wife the way I had taught him to allow my husband to treat me. Mhm. Um, and my daughter to marry somebody that would, you know that that was, that was okay. I was, I was emulating that to my kids because I was allowing all of this. Right. And so that was a big wake up moment for me.

Um, the other moment is probably not something I want to share. Um, but I witnessed him treating me, treating others the way he had treated me in a situation, and it took me seeing that behavior that I'd been putting up with for so many years, directed at somebody else to realize how bad it was. Oh, my. It's interesting.

So. And that's how sometimes us women are like to us it's not enough, but to somebody else. Wait a minute. It triggers that sort of protector in us. For me, there are multiple events. But there was one moment where he had, you know, essentially dressed me down in front of my parents on the back porch at that house, and I saw the look on their face.

Oh, you're seeing it through someone else's eyes. Yeah. And their little the princess they had sacrificed so much for and done so much for me. I was the their little princess in their minds to see him speak to me that way in front of them and the looks on their faces. And it was sort of like in that moment something in me broke, like, enough.

Yeah. It's, you know, in some ways it's quiet. When it happens, it is just enough now. Um, and I think the hard part. Just the truth of the difficulty. For for people listening. I don't think either one of us would sugarcoat it. Is that realization. You know, unfortunately, what that usually means is a bunch of a bunch of hard shit is about to have to happen because what you've realized is the fabric of your life that you've built.

We are we are co-creators, right? With our tacit consent, are continuing to stay. We teach people how to treat us. Our allowing. You know, I'm sure you went through a phase like I did of it's all this guy's fault. And then eventually you learn. I mean, and there are some things that people do. Obviously they have their culpability, but we have our own.

Um, and you realize, wait a minute, I've created this world. So that statement would teach people how to treat us. Um, is not complete. Okay. We teach people how to treat us by the way we react or don't react by the way we respond or don't respond. Mm. So it's not just because I really struggled with that and I'm like, how am I teaching someone to treat me like that?

Or anyone you know that was treating me poorly? It's because I didn't stand up for myself. I allowed it or I ignored it. And so that's how we make those situations seem okay to the other person, because there's no there's no clear boundaries. You know, Todd talks about boundary without consequences are just what to say.

Boundaries without consequences are just conversations or just you know and I didn't you know, I, I would I thought I had boundaries, but there were no consequences. And so things continue. Well, because consequences are messy when you've got four, three, four, one, however much kids at home and you've got this person and you don't want them angry, and you want a peaceful house, and you want to keep the peace, and you want to be a good mom, and you've got soccer practice to get to.

You don't have time for a big blow up or whatever. And I think a lot of times what happens is it's not. It's not overnight. It's a little bit by a little bit. And before you know it, you're in the middle of a life where it's like you've done the the CBA, the cost benefit analysis. Is it worth making a big stink over this?

It's just it's really not that big of a deal necessarily. This one instance. And I make a big stink and it's going to turn into a whole deal. And we just eventually decided that was what we we doubt our worth and our value. Um, at least I did. And I kept trying to prove my value. Mhm. Um, and it's interesting because even just a year ago, I found myself in a situation where I was still trying to prove my value to some people that didn't value me, and I was like, I am still doing this.

It was so ingrained in me from a young, young, young age that I needed to prove my value. And I have a group of lovely women in my life that already value me, but I was putting all this energy into this to something, a group that didn't truly value me. And that was a big wake up call for me then, that I was still doing that.

Um, and to turn my attention around to those that do value me. Yeah, yeah. Well, and I think, um, that's a lesson that, you know, can come through divorce and, and age and, you know, we kind of learn those, those things along the way. You know, what I was thinking about is how, you know, when people have this wake up sort of awareness moment, kind of back to that for a second.

Um, with that awareness, you know, to do anything about it requires some action that that essentially will involve, uh, pulling your power back from the people you'd given it to. Um, and I always say. And that with that will come, you know, the gnawing and gnashing of teeth, um, in reactions and in my own life, the consequences were very steep, had very steep consequences.

Um, and people always ask me, how do you know when it's time to get divorced? Well, it's whenever the costs of, um, staying exceed the cost of living. And women will say, oh, I can't believe I waited so long. Well, you were. You waited till that. There's this. There's this point where the calculation flips, right?

And it's it costs you more to stay. And so for me, uh, in the circumstances I created, the consequences of leaving were very high. My kids didn't live with me. Primarily at first. You know, I had little ones, um, and they were not with me primarily for three years. And it was a whole thing and a multi-year custody battle that's not over.

Um, and it cost a lot to claw that power back. And now I built the rest of my life upon that new foundation, and there was a lot of work, and I'm still doing it all the time, um, to go there, but it's it's it's a lot, you know, you're even adult children had thoughts, um, on what mom should be doing with her own self and her own goddamn life.

Right? Um, they didn't like the the way they were told. Well. Okay, kiddo. Okay. Um, and and I think so much our kids, you know, we all do this to our moms in some extent, like mom, exist as a derivative of me, right? Like you exist. How are you not answering the phone when I call? You know. Why are you not available when I'm available?

Yeah, right. And I think that that's part of as moms, what we carry forward when we make some of these decisions and, and step into a life that's not invisible, where we don't recognize ourselves, where we don't have feelings and emotions. And so as you made those decisions and started to wake up to the emotions and things, you know, I know that along the way you've developed some frameworks that I think would be really helpful, Kimber, because you talked and you started talking about it up at the top about feeling versus feeding the emotions.

Could you could you talk to us so, you know, you're not taking the antidepressants anymore and you've got all of these emotions? Probably was a little overwhelming at first, I would think. Yeah, it was overwhelming because I didn't know what to do with them. And just in the last few years, I've been working with the Emotions Wheel and that when I first got the emotions wheel, I was like, whoa, look at all these emotions.

And that's not even all of them. And so by being able to name what I was feeling was really the first step. Well, and let me I'll explain. So the emotions will y'all. She's talked about I've seen she knows I've seen it. It's this pie chart kind of looking thing with all these different colors that list all kinds of different emotions.

Like, did y'all know there are emotions besides happy, sad, mad? And those are those are emotions that we teach our fourth graders. Right. But we don't really learn beyond that. And so this emotion wheel reminded me of a painter's color or a color wheel for artists. Yeah. And so this whole framework is built around kind of my surfing and riding the waves of emotion and then the color beneath and relating it to the color wheel.

You know, the the tone, the texture. So I have an interactive emotion wheel, which I'll give you the link that you can share with everybody. They can play with it. Right. Um, but being able to name what I was feeling was the really the first step. Noticing

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the difference between feeding versus feeling an emotion really has been a lived experience. What is the difference? So I had an incident with one of my kids and it was really charged, and I found myself wanting to create a story around it. And I've been doing this feelings work. And I went, no, I'm going to stop the story.

And I went and I laid in my bedroom and I just sat with the emotion. I just sat with where I was feeling it in my body about 20 minutes. And literally I felt this in my chest and it's like it just moved. Um, as I was working on this wheel, I was feeling very frustrated. And through that frustration, um, I realized I was angry and it was so easy for me to try to make a story around, why am I angry?

Will this happened? And I'm angry about that. And da da da da da da da. But that only built the anger. And I kept going. No, Kimber, stop building a story. You're feeding the emotion. So I just let myself feel angry. And I went surfing. I had a surf lesson, and I love going out into the ocean when I have moments like that.

Because it's like, you know, anger makes you feel very powerful, right? So I was fighting up against the waves and letting her just beat me. And I was letting that anger just have space without a story. And underneath that anger, I felt some sadness. And I told my surf instructor I was like, wow, now I feel like I need to go home and watch a good movie and have a good cry.

So I'm on my way home and I find myself in my mind trying to justify why I'm sad. Pull for this. Will this happen? Yeah. I have every right to be sad about that. And I was like, no, that's that's feeding. I'm not feeling. I just need to feel the sadness. And when I can just feel the emotion, it doesn't get as charged.

But when I start adding the story and going, well, yeah, I should be, you know, mad. And then I call my friend and I say, he did this or she did that, that's feeding it and that's making it more charged. And instead of just going, God, I'm really feeling frustrated and sitting with that frustration, noticing where I'm feeling it in my body.

And for me, then it just kind of loses its grip. Yeah, this is one

01:29:59.390 — 01:30:28.959

that I have. I have only recently developed a very elementary relationship with. So when I was getting divorced, I used to brag about how I didn't even sit and cry. Not one day. I just kept going. I just got like it was an accomplishment. And my natural disposition. I'm a I'm a seven on the Enneagram. I'm a positive.

Let's go. Optimist. Busy body. Get working. Um, get moving. Kind of a person and I

01:30:30.000 — 01:35:14.559

my in my emotions in general can be very big and very overwhelming. I'm a sensitive person. And so to feel those emotions was like more than I had the capacity. I now know to use that word. I didn't back then to to do. And certainly I never no one literally in my life until the last few years. I was like, well, you have to feel that, feel the emotion.

Um, because avoidance always sends an invoice. Um, and what we avoid persists, right? Um, and it's I felt the same way, you know, I, I was very even keel with my emotions Until something would happen and I would just, like, explode. You know, like Todd talks about with the the Pez dispenser. You know, it's like all that candy just comes spewing out because I kept stuffing and stuffing and stuffing until I had no more room.

And then one little thing would set me off. Um, but what I'm learning is those emotions that I was avoiding feeling. It wasn't the emotion itself. It was the thoughts that I was having about the situation that kind of took me out of my capacity. Yeah. Even just this last week, this is probably the most successfully I've ever done this.

And I just want to spend some time on this because I didn't understand. I've done a lot of work about mindset and learning and psychology, blah, blah, blah. And I have had a difficulty with people helping me understand this part. And so what happened for me last week is I was feeling hot mad. I started the day feeling fine, and I got to thinking about this situation while I was curling my hair As I'm standing there, I was getting madder and matter and madder about the circumstance, and I, I think I was I'm using quotes justified in being angry.

This is not like and I generally speak, I don't get mad and fly off the handle. I've also learned to trust myself. My anger is justified, like when I'm actually good and angry. Something has occurred to make that so. I'm not moody. I don't just pop off, generally speaking. Um, and so I'm sitting there and I'm so angry and my used to be way to do deal with this would be to call somebody and bitch and moan.

That makes you feel better to release. I'm a verbal processor, so it's kind of like why it's fun to have a podcast in just chat, um, is I think by talking that's how I get it out. And so that would be the way. But then the thing is, what I've learned is and I'll stop myself sometimes is, wait a minute, that's a lesser release because what I would do is diffuse part of it.

Add some more story on top of it. Right and wrong. Make by calling the friend. Getting it out. I'll feel a little bit better, but then I didn't actually do the thing to dig in. So in this instance, I was going to call a friend. Actually, I probably tried to call a couple friends and they probably just didn't answer me.

I was like, let's be honest. Um, and they didn't answer. And I'd seen my husband, he was still downstairs, and I was like, just don't mind me. I am just I'm just angry. Um, and he's like, oh, okay. And because he saw me and he said, and he, I, he thought I looked so pretty that day. And I said. Do I look do I look like fuck around and find out?

He said, um, I think I'll get out of your way. I was like, that's a good decision. So I just kept going, um, and where. And then anyway, got in the car with my son and I've been trying as he's getting older, he's turning 16. Share a little bit about emotions with him. I mean, I didn't learn anything about emotions.

And he said, mom, you seem mad. I said, son, I'm sorry, I am angry. I'm not angry with you, but I am angry. I can tell you more about it in the car. And I just told them a little bit about what was going on. I wasn't and I was doing it in a mom way, so there was no wrong. I was doing modeling, right? No wrong making, just sort of explaining some facts about what had happened.

So I can understand why you're mad. And by the end of it, I certainly felt a bit lighter, um, in talking with him and I was able to thank him. Said, thank you for listening. I do feel a bit better just talking with you. And then, anyway, I stuck with that emotion. Um, even with talking with him about it, I did share it with the with the friend.

You know, my my little son, my friend in a way that wasn't trying to win anything, wasn't trying to get a battle. It was just really just sharing my heart. Um, and he's too young to to join me or commiserate in any of it. Right. And as the day went on, I just stayed in that spot. I didn't try to make myself feel better.

I didn't try to get out of it. I also was was committed to not reacting, and that was the key. I wasn't going to act in anger. I tell clients all the time and tell my kid, whoever will listen to me do nothing in activation and that is good activation or bad activation. I have to always relearn the good activation lesson, because I write checks with my mouth that I don't want to cash later.

And then, um, I, I

01:35:15.680 — 01:35:28.760

was committed not to reacting, and it would have not served what I needed in my life to have reacted. And sometimes I think there's a time and a place to say something, but this was not it. And you know what happened, Kimber, is that day went on, and I,

01:35:30.040 — 01:42:02.220

by the end of it, had turned that anger into creativity. Somewhere along the way, it got transmuted, it got shifted, and I ended up having some really great ideas, making a lot of progress from some different projects we're working on, and ended up bopping along thinking, this was such a great day. Yeah, and I really believe y'all.

I'm telling you all that whole thing. Um, to explain, I mean, I was Hannah Hembree bell hot mad, and that is mad. And I didn't make it less. I didn't make it wrong. I also didn't make it right. I wasn't justifying myself everywhere. I turned around and by the end it had turned. And one thing I wish I would have learned a long time ago is that skill.

Then, you know, there's that book that a lot of us have heard of called The Body Keeps the Score. Because what happens to is avoidance sends an invoice. And that may be in the terms of like physical issues. And for me, what happens is when I stuff it down and hold it in, I lose my voice. My voice is and you become invisible in my voice and resentful and angry, and instead I allow to process it through.

And now, a few days later, I have a memory of it, and I'm clean about it. I'm clean about the situation. It just is what it is. I'm not resentful. I didn't carry anything forward. Now, for people in the middle of the divorce, the thing about that is it's a lot to consider feeling your emotions, and quite frankly, a lot of people feeling it all the way is probably not even the right answer, because they can't, because that's, you know, butts up into this concept of capacity.

And I'd love you to talk to us a little bit about that, because it's one of those words people say on the internet or psychologists and stuff, but I don't think they communicate well. What does it mean to have the capacity? Because because some of y'all listening and may think, okay, yeah, I need to feel my emotions, but you may not be able to handle the emotions that are deep under there anger itself for staying for so long.

Fear about what's going to happen with the kids. Guilt over is your church. Is God going to hate you? Is your momma going to hate you? Is ever gonna think you're an idiot, right? So what what that surfaces is the concept of capacity. So could you talk to us, Kimber, about that and what that means? Yeah, for me, I was introduced to this, um, framework of being in the comfort zone.

Okay. Moving into your stretch zone and moving into your panic zone. Okay. And for me, staying in the comfort zone, growth doesn't happen there. It's where we go to rest and to recover. Being in the stretch zone is where the work happens. The panic zone is when we're at over capacity. And so it's easy to get to that end of your, you know, in the stretch zone where you're almost into to panic.

But that's where growth happens. And so learning to be um, in big emotions and in, in heavy spaces, but also knowing when to back away. Okay. And and listening to your body. Um, this weekend my daughter had her wedding party, and so my ex was there. His whole family was there. His new family was there. You know, there's a lot of there was a lot of, um, a lot of stuff going on.

Yeah. You know, and, so I show up and I honored my capacity and I didn't. I was just telling Ron this morning, I didn't feel that compression in me in the situations where I had conversations with, with my ex or with his family. I was able to to have space and listening to my body. If I felt myself getting shrinking myself, that would have meant, oh, I'm, I'm over capacity.

But it never got to that. And I left when I needed to leave, when I was done, when I had, you know, I had had enough. Um, so it's a practice. It's just a practice of, you know, and it's not the capacity, living in the capacity we want to have, it's the capacity we actually do have when I think of capacity. So if we step back a little bit, like what does that even mean?

The way I'll say this, I think about it like how big is your bucket? It's how I think of it. Capacity is how big is your bucket? And some people got a thimble sized bucket. And some people got a dump truck sized bucket. And for different issues, because like, especially when in my in my life, people say all the time like, I don't know how you do it or like I would have just this and that.

Well, the thing is, every person and I guess what I was really saying, I would say, like every person's life is as hard as they can take it, and it feels just as hard to them as maybe my stuff does to me, because my capacity for dealing with bullshit and difficulty got pretty big. It got stretched by necessity, really.

Um, and survival at the time, and I think of that is really what I was probably saying, is that your capacity to experience a challenge, it takes it stretches that rubber band of your capacity. It stretches your bucket as big as it can. And that feels comfy to you does. And it feels uncomfortable to me in the same way.

It's just that my bucket is bigger. So for people in the middle of the divorce process, I think a way to think about it is it doesn't really. We're not in a bucket comparing competition, but your bucket can only stretch, or your rubber band can only stretch so far without snapping. And so every time I had to explain to me, Casey Shipp, who's on the show before, I remember talking about, like, every time you feel that thing.

And for me, the lesson has been feeling joy, which I think we can talk about next. But, um, every time you start to feel that thing, rather than popping right up out of that, that divot, could you sit in there a few more seconds? Absolutely. And that's such a good point because that was me before is I start feeling uncomfortable.

I was I was out of there. I was just in a conversation. Can we do it now? Get on your phone, turn on the radio, call a friend. Think it through. Y'all think how many times today? This morning, this afternoon, while you're listening to this, has this already happened to you, where you started to feel or stretch just a smidge and shortcut?

Nope. I'm gonna pull up. Why don't I pull up my phone, see what's happening on the TikTok? What's the latest cat video? You know, instead of sitting in that stretch. Exactly. And so being able to sit in that discomfort even just a little bit, is going to increase your capacity. When my husband and I first got together, he would say growth doesn't happen when you're comfortable.

01:42:03.380 — 01:48:26.479

And staying curious has been a really big process for me to just be curious about things instead of judging that is wrong or bad or good or whatever. Um, just being curious about the situation, because the judgment then brings in a whole nother level of storytelling to the feeling and your bucket. Um, so yeah, curiosity has been, you know, they say curiosity killed the cat, but I found somewhere that there was.

The rest of the line was curiosity. Cat may have killed the cat. Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back. Ooh, ooh. And I don't I don't know who said that. I just found it was in some play somewhere. Oh, um. Yeah. Interesting. Well, and I think, I think a takeaway for everybody listening is could you, when you're experiencing this growth edge, this stretch zone, we're not asking you to stay in panic.

Rubber band snap and bucket breaking zone. And you may be there with things going on with your kids screaming and I mean all kinds of things. And I had I did I, I reached the point I recall in the early like worst moments of the divorce happening in me, me leaving where my, my rubber band snapped and I got a pretty stretchy rubber band.

Um, and I remember I just walked back and forth and just said, I'm okay, I'm okay. I can't even I can't even go there in the way that it felt at the time. But just rocking back and forth. I'm okay. I'm okay. All right. We don't want you to get to the, like, rocking back and forth. I'm okay phase. That's a snapped rubber band.

But or or have the awareness of, oh shit, my rubber band snapped. Mhm. So then the next time you start moving to snapping that rubber band, you go, oh, I'm about to snap. So it's the awareness piece. Yeah. Yeah. And then eventually you go oh yeah that's that's panic. If I go if I go a little bit further and eventually you catch yourself before you get into the panic zone.

So it's a practice of awareness. Yeah. And staying in it. And I think that's the thing that's what people can do is like can you stay in that stretch. Good. Bad. Whatever. Probably in the middle of a divorce like the the scary part and all that. Could you, could you sit there another 30s another minute, you know, for Kimber took 20 minutes in the bed, just letting it feel for just a minute right before it sort of moves through you.

And if I was listening, I'd be like, ah, that sounds stupid. I'm not doing that. Because then I'm just gonna feel bad. And then what? And I guess it's like I'm 42 chambers, a little older than that. Um, and we can tell you, as some ladies who've been there. That it is the way. Because every storm runs out of rain.

And that emotion. Actually, when my friends, um, Faith Johnston Lowry said this to me, I remember she said she thought of emotions like clouds and you're the sky and the emotions. Those clouds are going to come on through and then keep on going. And what happens? Y'all just take my word for it is once you start to do this, you really do feel better.

It really is the way when people talk about healing and growth and sometimes you're like, what do they mean? Like they're talking about some other thing that you don't know what they're actually. So many times people say something, I'm like, what are you actually saying? But I think what they're telling you is that this is the way you survive the hard thing and you don't get dead.

And so then, you know, the next time you face it, you could do it. And that stretch is what people call your capacity. It widens your bucket. And one thing, Kimber, that you know, made me think of you as a guest for this podcast in the beginning was when you talked about our capacity to experience joy. Is is related to or like on the other pole of like the grief and the pain emotion.

So, um, you know, I think the capacity to experience the hard parts of divorce, it is I wish there were any other way. But I've learned now, and I hope you can talk to us a little bit about how that capacity stretching your bucket, stretching your rubber band to experience some of the tough stuff makes room and builds your ability to receive the good stuff.

Yeah, I had a teacher 20 something years ago and she drew out a line and she had the, you know, emotions on them. And she said, when you stifle your anger or your sadness, you also stifle all of your emotions. And that really stuck with me and I didn't I didn't quite understand what she said, but it was something that stayed in the back of my head.

And then I heard, um, a friend of mine shared with me. She was in my women's group. She heard on a podcast, a guy say that Joy is the mother of all emotions, and she won't come sit at the table until all of her children are welcome. And I love that because when we don't allow ourselves to feel, you know, anger or joy, I mean anger or sadness, we do.

We stifle the other emotions. And that's where I had become so numb. Um, was I just wasn't feeling the frustration and the sadness and the anger. And so then consequently, there was not joy there. And so by slowly giving myself permission and also learning that emotions are messengers, they're here to tell us something.

And on the emotions wheel, you have emotions that show when we're in ease and we show have emotions that show when we're in dis ease. And so they're not good or bad and they're not storms to survive. They're a part of us. And so just by honoring them, seeing them, sitting with them, not trying to build a case around them.

And I think that's where a lot of us, you know, and of course, at first, I think when we get in those big emotions, we we need to tell the story. But if we're still telling the story 5 or 10 years later. Yeah, you know, there's something's got to give. And the body doesn't know that the event's not actually happening.

When you're telling a story. So if you're telling a story about something that happened ten years ago, well, it just happened to me. I was going to tell. Just went back there for a little bit of, I'm okay, I'm okay. And immediately my body hunched and started to rock and it was going to go straight back then.

Absolutely. So I have a practice now and it's all throughout my book. It's called the White White Watch. Okay. And so when I find myself

01:48:27.520 — 01:49:08.209

getting reactive or in a tough situation, the wait is the pause and the pull back and the physical scan, which you're familiar with. So you just pause and you pull back and you just check in with your body. And then the what is what do I need to know? Do, be or understand or feel in this moment? And then I watch.

And this is where I watch myself either get reactive or start to react. And I can stop or congratulate myself for not reacting. So it's a very simple tool to have in your in your back pocket is to just when you notice yourself getting triggered to just wait

01:49:09.450 — 01:51:08.020

it. Don't act yet. Give yourself a second yourself, you know and they I can't remember. It seems like they say it takes like seven seven seconds for a motion to really fully move through your body. But with the storytelling that we do with the emotions, they linger, they hang on or we're repressing them.

They still there. And when we repress them, they're controlling the show more than we realize when I'm sitting here thinking about is what you said about how our emotions are trying to teach us something, right? And and one thing I was reflecting on is how that piece of information I had to learn through experience, and it required a real unlearning for me, and that my emotions are there to tell me something and I can and should believe them, because I had learned to not trust my own emotions, that I'd been sort of gaslit, or by society, boyfriends or whatever, people myself to not believe it.

Oh, I'm only angry basically because. Or you're too emotional. Yeah. That's right. Is it all of that? Like I'm too emotional. That emotion happy, whatever it is, is disproportionate to the circumstances. Or I shouldn't feel this way for some XYZ reason or it's inconvenient or whatever. So what that what?

That skill or habit that formed in me was not to trust how I felt. To assume that the way I felt was wrong and that I needed to change it. And I, I do, you know, believe in being a manager of your own behavior and not acting like a lunatic and all this. And so I got pretty good at handling that. But what it did was when I would have an emotion come up.

And when I'm trying to do the work of people saying, your emotions are there to tell you something. There was a real work for me to trust myself. And so I want to say that to the women listening. Like your emotions are valid

01:51:09.100 — 01:53:53.210

and to be believed. Period. Full stop, the end. And I think where the confusion comes in is when an emotion is good or bad, it's the action of the emotion, like anger. When we're feeling angry, we think of, at least for me, back in the day, I would throw things and just have a fit and scream and yell. That to me is not feeling an emotion that is reacting to an emotion.

And so that action. So anger was not something I allowed really in my life. So that day that I told you that I was frustrated and I realized from the wheel that that was anger. I was like, oh, this is what anger is. So even just allowing myself to acknowledge that I'm in an angry space and we're dealing with some stuff with this new house that we bought.

And I told her on the other day, I was like, I just have to go. I've got a lot of emotions. And I just went in my bedroom and I just sat with him because otherwise I would be snappy with him, or I might make a phone call that I would regret later. And so I just went and just gave myself the day as long as I needed to. And you talked about the creativity in that time of just sitting with my emotions, getting beyond my thoughts.

I came up with some solutions, some some real actions, and I realized there is a fine line between feeding your emotions with stories that keep building it, and using that emotion to find a creative way through. And that's kind of where I'm navigating right now, is how to, you know, use it to be creative and not feed it.

And so this whole last week, I had almost been at my capacity and really noticing. And I'm doing a zoom call on Tuesday on feeding versus feeling. And I'm like, I'm bringing some real life stuff. Yeah, you got it all. You got it a week that I've had, um, because it's so easy to get into that storyteller mode and that meaning making mode and making meaning when we don't have all the information.

And so that day that I sat in that room, I was like, okay, I need more clarity. And it's like when I got curious about how to get more clarity over what had taken place, Then I was able to get more creative with the solution. Hmm. Well, it is. Is that kind of where your book came from? You know, you've got this book come out.

An invitation to shine. Is that sort of the creativity born out of feeling these emotions? You know, that book came out of a medicine journey. I did it was a four day intensive. And the intention of the journey was step into your shining.

01:53:54.410 — 01:55:58.669

And that was a real challenge space for me, which surprised me. And it required me looking at all the ways that I had prevented myself and didn't allow myself to shine. And so I started. I didn't take my journal to that ceremony. So I came home and I started writing about the whole weekend. And it just led into more stories.

And I realized I had a really great gift at integrating life Experiences. And then that's when I went to the Condor approach to be an integration coach. Um, and so this book, it really kind of wrote itself. And so I started retelling stories that I'd been telling myself from a place of a victim, and then rewriting it from a place of empowerment.

And when I would see it rewritten that way, I'd be like, wow, um, you know, it's still I felt it, but it was hard for me all those years to not because I think most of us tell a story from a place of being a victim. Right? Yeah. Well, he did this, and that happened. And da da da da da da. And so there's a goodbye. A good guy and a bad guy.

And we're not the bad guy. Yeah, absolutely. One of one of the big ones, was he? I used to say, well, he wouldn't let me go back to school or go back to work. And when I rewrote it, why did I think I needed his permission to go back to school or to go back to work? So I started, like, rewriting all these different stories, and then this book just kind of evolved and and what was funny, I sent it to the editor for the first edit, and she kept asking me these questions.

I was like, well, those are really weird questions that she's asking me. So she sends me back to the edited copy, and I had sent my dumping notes, I hadn't I sent the wrong copy for oh gosh, oh gosh. And I was like so embarrassed. And she said, you would not be surprised. This happens often, but it worked out beautifully because then I completely reformatted the book and

01:55:59.830 — 01:57:27.730

here it is. But I think it's something to Kimber that, um, women listening who because y'all, there's a book and then there's a workbook, which we'll put all the links in the show notes, too, that can help you reframe and reconsider how you're, I think, approaching your life. And are you doing it from this place of stepping into the fullness of your power and your light, versus continuing to play a small and the victim in in those stories and framing yourself that way.

And it's it was going to be called forget what you learned so you can remember what you've forgotten. And that's actually thread through the whole book, what I had to forget in order to remember. So it's more of a remembering. It's not a book telling you you're doing anything wrong that you need to, you know, fix this or that.

It's just to remember who you are as an individual. Um, beyond all the the constructs and, you know, learning about constructs was really big for me the first time I heard talk about, you know, constructs and the idea of how, you know, a wife should be and a mother son relationship should be, or a husband wife relationship should be.

And when you can get and they're not wrong, they keep us safe. But as you start growing and those constructs don't really fit, you know, you kind of like push pushing the edge and going, okay, wait a minute. This. This is what it's supposed to be, but this is not how I'm feeling it and changing that story.

01:57:28.810 — 01:59:32.139

Then, you know, then then you can start remembering who you are beyond what society wants you to be. Yeah. And I think that's ultimately any woman who ever just is the one who decides to get divorced, you know, is sort of a look at the constructs of her own life, what she decided it was going to look like and is willing to make it different.

So, Kimera, thank you so much. Um, there. We can keep going. I have there are so many other extras y'all are going to want to follow. Can you share some really great stuff? Uh, and I'll remember we ask everybody who comes a few of the same questions. So we want to hear your answers. Um, have you been having, like, as any, any thought, uh, pervade it or been pervasive in your mind, a dominant thought the last few days, last week, something that's just kind of been on your mind that you've been mulling over.

Mm. Really this whole feeding, feeling, feeding versus feeling has really been present in my life and recognizing how easy it is to slip into feeding it and ruminating over it and building a case. And I'm grateful that I have the tools to catch myself when I'm doing that. Mhm. Um, and showing up without the stories playing in the back of my head.

And so I think that's probably been really alive in my life, um, this last week. Yeah. It's something I think, um, we, you can just continue to learn and relearn over and over again because, you know, I talk about it often and I know and to me, I think, oh, everybody knows what that means. And I've realized, no, they don't.

And having had this experience that I've had over the last couple of weeks, I'm like, I get it because I've been catching myself trying to make that case. Or, you know, when I was younger, the girls would get together and we would have these stitch and bitch sessions where we would stitch and bitch about our husbands and that.

You know, I often leave those and go, oh, God, how do I take how how am I handling this? Why am I putting up with this? So the story then kind of gives you more doubt and

01:59:33.180 — 02:01:12.750

confusion about what it is you're really feeling. And so just sitting with it and it's okay to sit with anger, it's okay to be angry. That's one for me that I'm constantly, constantly working on. I mean, it's not like I'm angry all the time, but it's one that when it's there, I try to make it go away as quickly as possible.

And I've learned not to. So okay, what about so the name of the show is not saving it for later when you heard that, does that bring up anything in particular you? Are there anything that you struggle with saving for later that maybe you've been working on or you know, not anymore. I think there for a long time it was well, when this happens and then when that happens, um, but in the last few years, you know, I sold everything and moved to Panama.

Learning how to surf. Um, wrote a book, so I'm not saving anything for later. And something I'd like to add to some of these moms that are waiting till their kids get older. A piece of the puzzle that we don't often think about. Our kids grow and get or get older, so do our parents. Mhm. And so now I'm kind of in the in-between of, you know, watching my mother decline needing to be available for her.

So I had this small window where it could just be about me for just a little while, and I'm so grateful that I didn't wait until later, because you don't know what's going to happen later. Yeah, later. Later is a lie. Yeah. Oh, we don't know. Well, and if you had only one piece of advice for the women of divorced land to close this out, what would you tell them, Kimber?

Value yourself. Stop looking for validation outside of yourself and.

02:01:15.040 — 02:01:31.360

you got this. It's hard. It is hard. I'm not going to. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. It's a it's a tough road. Especially when there's kids involved. Um, it was the hardest thing that I ever did. And also the best thing that I ever did for myself. Same. It's the.

02:01:32.760 — 02:03:05.610

There's no. The only way out is through. Um, you know, I say hard. It was the bravest. Yeah, it was the bravest thing. I was bravest and hardest. Yeah. Um, I hope, I hope. I hope it don't get harder than that. Um, it would be kind of hard to imagine, to be honest. Uh, well, thank you, Kimber, so much. I think this is a very important episode.

Uh, for those of us who are still listening here at the end, just to to take with you and to take forward sitting with stuff just a little bit longer. Um, stretching that capacity stretch in your rubber band. Um, because remember that Joy is the mother of all emotions, and she ain't going to come to the table unless her all her children are present.

And that means the bad stuff. So if you're anything like me that just wants to keep skipping on to the better stuff. Um, slowing down to experience the difficulty is how you make room for the game and maybe not calling it bad or better, just bigger. Yeah. Bigger stuff? Yeah. Um, because when we label it as bad or better, you know, the bad has a bad connotation.

So it's not that it's a bad emotion. It's just a bigger emotion. And it's okay to sit with. Yeah, I got some room to grow on that. I'll tell me the same thing. Um, when we when we visited this season and, you know, I still like it was it was a big moment for me to be like, just let it be good. And I was like, how about just let it be?

Just let it be. And I call it good or bad. So yes, that's next. I'm gonna have to I'm gonna have to listen to some podcast episodes myself together. It's funny because I think that is probably a place that I'm in right now is, you know, really seeing that there's not a good or bad right or wrong. Just let it be.

Let it be. Yeah. Thank you. Kimber. Thank you.