002_The Power to Change Your Life Lies Within You

You're listening to the divorce mommy podcast with Julie C. Arty at the soad to. I'm Julie C. Arty and I want to help you create the life you want and your children need. Let's go. Thank you so much for joining me on episode two. Hopefully you listened to the first episode of the divorce mommy podcast. I am thrilled to be here with you and I wanted to share a little bit about what this episode is going to be about. I really want you to feel that you have the power to decide what the rest of your life will be like. You have the power to let your divorce or circumstances define you or to let it be an event in your life that helps to shape you into the person that you want to be and the life that you want to have for you and your kids. So we're going to get into that today. It's a pretty meaty topic and in fact it's going to be a thread throughout this podcast because yes there's so many facets of a divorce whether it's finances and you know all of that goes with that goes with being divorced but I really want to zero in on your mindset, your heart, your emotions, helping you to be the best mom that you can be. I don't have all the answers. I'm still going through it myself but but I've been going through it for 11 years and I definitely feel that there are strategies and tips and things that I can share that'll hopefully help you as well. So before we get started I really just want to throw it out there that I would love to be connecting with you outside of the podcast on Instagram you can follow me at divorced mommy or you can go right to my website. It's divorcemommy.blog www.divorcemommy.blog and you can sign up right there to be on my email list and I promise I'm going to respect your email inbox if you're like me you're overwhelmed with the email that you get but you then you'll know when I've put a new episode out and I'm also planning to provide you guys with some great free bees things that help you on your journey and so one of the things you'll get right away if you sign up on my website to start getting alerts is a great free bee that you can download it's a copy of the top 10 things your child wants you to know as you navigate co-parenting. This is written by my 15-year-old daughter and she has 11 years of experience of living in a divorced family with two homes and so her insights are incredible I highly recommend that you log on sign up to join our email list and you'll get this free bee right in your inbox to download and it is just full of gold okay and so let's let's get into you know a couple of things that I really want to get out there straight up I know that divorce can look like many things right I know that it can be an amicable split maybe not as common it can be a very painful split due to some hurtful event like infidelity or addiction there could be you know abuse involved I I don't know what your situation is but I don't want to make light in any way of any of those situations I don't know which of these is true for you but whichever reason it is that you and your kids dad are divorced or getting divorced I still want you to know that you have the power to decide how this will impact you and your children's lives you might be saying you're crazy I have no power in this situation you know this happened to me and to my family and I had no say whatsoever and that may very well be true but how you move forward in your life is up to you here is a quote I want you to write down and think about the past cannot be changed the future is yet in your power I'll say it one more time the past cannot be changed the future is yet in your power let that sink in right that the future is yours and how you want to go after it and the past is the past it's done there's nothing you can do about the past now there's no sense in living in it and but the future is yours and you can and it can be what you want it to be and I know what you might be saying is okay well okay if something bad happens to me like cancer or I lose my job you know I get I have no power you know over that situation and I'm here to tell you you you do and it's how you handle that situation you have a hundred percent power over and I'm gonna tell you a quick story so I can remember I was probably right out of college I just graduated and had to get a job had a real job and nine to five and sitting in a cubicle and I came home for the weekend to see my my parents and I was sitting in the kitchen with my dad and oh I was just not happy I was like I was like dad what the heck this is like terrible people go to work Monday through Friday nine to five and you know I don't even love what I'm doing and you know it stinks that we have to work this is so crazy and I was just in a total complaining mode and I remember he said something that stuck with me forever and and what he said to me was okay well what are you gonna do about it he said you always have a choice Julie he said you can sit here and complain that now you have to have a job and you're not in college anymore and you have to have the responsibility and you can complain but what do you do about it action and choice is yours you know find a different job you don't have to do this job you can do something else and he basically in grain really got into my brain that no matter what life throws my way I have a choice in how I'm going to handle it and I'm gonna drop a bit of a truth bomb here I'm not a big fan of the victim mentality and you know I'm not gonna say not to feel sorry for yourself sometimes because oh hell no I I really love to have a good wallow and woe is me with a vice of choice right food wine a sad movie let it all out but once you experience it you feel it then take action then decide how are you gonna deal with it what actions will you take to improve the situation and I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that yes while you have the power to create action and drive change in whatever situation you may be in it can still mean that you have to make tough decisions in this world of being a divorce mommy sometimes those tough decisions and actions maybe better for your children or your long-term relationship with their dad but harder for you but worth it in your long-term vision for your life and what do I mean by that so when I was getting divorced 11 years ago I'm a transplant in New York I grew up in the Boston area and the first thing that I wanted to do after you know our while we were getting divorced was I wanted to move home I wanted to move back to Boston I wanted to be closer to my family we lived in New York near my kids dads family but I didn't have that power to make that change I couldn't do it by myself and still have the vision I wanted to have for my kids and their dad I wasn't going to take that to court and you know try to you know be able to leave the state of New York with my children wasn't gonna do that my long-term vision was that they have their dad in their life right they deserve to have their dad in their life and so while that was really hard for me it wasn't in line with my vision right and it was better for my kids to be near their dad and you know I haven't given up on that vision by the way so and we'll talk a bit about vision boards in the future but having a vision having a list of goals or dreams you know to be striving for in life is a wonderful thing to have and so I still have the dream I'm gonna move I'm probably gonna move back to the Boston area at some time I hope to but it wasn't right for that time 11 years ago when I knew I wanted to have my kids be close to their dad, it just wasn't going to be a choice that I could make at that time. So, to recap, you have the choice and power to figure out how you're going to handle a situation. You don't always have control over the situation, but you have control on how you're going to handle it and your mindset around it and the actions that you'll put in place to address the situation. And that's what I want you to think about, whatever situation you may be in. I want you to think about, instead of just having the emotions around the situation, what are the actions you're going to take to address the situation? That's where you need to put your energy and your focus and in making sure that those actions line up to that vision that you have for yourself, your kids, your relationship with their dad and moving that forward. So, for now, I'd like to invite you to take a little test, the rocking chair test. I want you to sit back, close your eyes, and picture yourself in a rocking chair on a porch. There's a slight breeze, you're rocking in the rocking chair, right on your front porch, you're in your 80s, and as you rock, you're thinking about your life, you're thinking about what kind of mother you've been, you're thinking about how happy you have been and what you are most proud of, of what you accomplished, what are you most proud of? Write it down, pen to paper, and it can be very sobering and comforting at the same time. Are you currently on a path that will get you to that vision of how you want to look back on your life in that rocking chair? And if you aren't, why? Starting a journal is a great start to work through these thoughts. And they will be very important as we continue our journey here together, because I definitely plan to help provide you with some strategies, some tips to continue to work through the vision that you have for your life and where you want to be for you and your kids, and where you are now and how to get there. So get a journal, start writing things down, start putting down pen to paper, a vision for how you want your life to unfold, how you want to feel, what you're going to be proud of, but what kind of mom you want to be. And we don't always get to choose what happens to us in life often, we don't, right? But we have total control over what we do about it. And I really want to instill that message of power that you have that power, okay? And that's what this podcast is about. I want to work with you on getting through some of the feelings and powering through those feelings to actions. And I'll be sharing with you steps that I've taken over the last 11 years to get to where I am now, but I'll be totally honest with you. I'm still on this journey as well. I just might be a decade ahead of you, but I have a 13 year old son and an almost 15 year old daughter. We are working through the teenage years now. And with it brings many new hurdles and challenges, whether you're a divorce parent or not. So then you add in the complexity of divorce and it's even more complicated, honestly. And so, you know, I don't have all the answers, but I've learned a lot in the last 11 years. And that's what I'm excited to be able to share with you because I want to help you create that life you want, the life your children need. So that when you're in that rocking chair, you know that you've done your best. You've done your best to achieve the vision for the life that you want to have. So I'm going to leave you with this. If you are currently in a place where you're saying, why is this happening to me? And feeling sad, feeling like life has just thrown you curve balls that you feel are just completely unfair. I want to flip your thinking on that. And here's a great quote from Tony Robbins. Life is happening for you, not to you. I'll say it again, life is happening for you, not to you. It's the lessons, right? The lessons of life and that life presents to you and how we handle them that create the life we have. We don't have control over all those situations, but if you can handle them, go through them, gotta go through them, gotta feel the emotions, gotta feel the pain or hurt or whatever we need to feel. But once we come up with an action and plans and we know that we're going to get through it, life dealt you that for a reason. And I truly believe that. And it's taking that time to look at life, not as wise as it's happening to me, but okay, this is happening for me for a reason. You may not know what it is right now, but I promise it'll reveal itself at some point. So I just wanna thank you so much for listening again. I hope you found it valuable. I promise that there'll be some levity. We will laugh at times, maybe cry. And sometimes, I may say things you might not wanna hear or may not be ready to hear. And that's okay too. We're all in different places. And as I said, I don't have all the answers, but I do wanna connect with you. I wanna hear from you. I want to know what you're struggling with, what questions you have, what you would love to hear. On this podcast, that could be helpful to you in the situation that you're in. So connect with me on Instagram. It's @devoursmommy. You can DM me right there in Instagram. I will 100% respond. You can go right to my website, www.devoursmommy.blog to sign up and you can be on my email list. And as I mentioned at the beginning of the podcast, you'll get an awesome freebie that my 15 year old daughter wrote. It's the downloadable PDF on the top 10 things your child will want you to know as you navigate co-parenting. Trust me, you won't wanna miss it. It is full of gold. So thank you so very much for listening. And I hope we can continue this journey together in the next episode. Thanks so much, Gals. Bye. (upbeat music)