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Published Apr 27, 2021, 3:35 AM

Guest Host: Brooke Burke

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Hey, everybody on Brooke Burke, and you might be wondering why you're hearing my voice and not the usual duo. I'm really happy to be joining you and I don't know, I guess we just addressed the elephant in the room, you know, right off the top. I have been following, you know, the latest news with with Janna and Michael and um. You know, as a woman, I want to say that I have been through two very public divorces. It is hard, um, and I'm here just filling in and uh, you know, right now, I feel like a pause, a moment that they're giving themselves for whatever reason that might not be our business yet um is real and valid and super duper important. So I'm just here to dish and chat. And we have an amazing guest joining us today, which I'm very grateful for, Hillary Goldscher, And she's a clinical psychologist. She specializes in couples and relationship therapy. So um, she's going to be our expert. I've so many things to ask her, and it's so nice to have someone like her to bounce things off of because I'm not an expert. I've been through this, but I'm still learning and I also want to just reiterate that these are all possibilities, Like, no one knows what somebody else is going through, and it's really easy for all of us to assume and and um, you know, to talk about Janet Mike, but honestly, uh, nobody has any idea of what goes on in the privacy of people's home. So give them grace. And I'm really happy that Hillary is here because I just want to keep it real and hopefully we can all learn and um and grow a little bit. Today. Well, I'm here too, it's Mark and Um. I was stunned, of course when I heard the news. And people will say, how, how can you be stunned? It's been years of a podcast with these two arguing, bickering, struggling through their relationship. But I really thought they had turned a corner. I really thought that um, Michael had reached a point in his therapy that he was asked what he's being said to have done in the press. And I don't know what he's done, and I don't know. I don't want to assume anything, but there's a lot out there about infidelity on his part. I don't know if that's happened again or not, but if it has happened again, that's what I'm completely shocked about. Just knowing him over the past few years, I really felt he wanted desperately to put that part of his life behind him. Yeah, you know, it's yeah, I can't, you know, one of those cheesy quotes, But I swear it's so true that everybody else's opinion is really none of our business. I mean, it's sort of like the mystery, you know, having gone through two marriages, for children, two divorces, um, you know, sometimes we just don't get to be who we hope to be in a relationship. And one of the turning points for me um in my most recent divorce to David, and I feel really comfortable today saying that I had a chance to marry the love of my life, like we had a mad love affair, connects and chemistry, two beautiful children, like conceived from love and raised in that same vein. And you know, it was devastating to feel in moments that I failed. And my turning point was when I realized that I wasn't giving up and I didn't fail. It was just time to let go, and it was time to sort of meet my relationship that was hard with um, honesty and a bit of a surrender, if that makes sense. And um, you know, I have a podcast called Intimate Knowledge, and we sort of broke it down when I was very raw and vulnerable. And you know, sometimes those are the greatest times to bring light to this challenge because I struggled in the letting go of the fairy tale that I wanted and letting go of who we were trying to be in Yeah, therapy and yeah kids and all this stuff worth fighting for and the moment in time and by the way, we worked on it for years before we had our our our, our transition into change. And you know that's the way everybody calls it something fabulous publicly, right, I mean you remember all the criticism, you know, with so many people in the press. Um, But for me, it was like it was time for change and I had to own that and that was freaking hard. You know. I was reading, um, you know, Janna's post last week and um, it was right before I agreed to to co host today and to come in and fill in, and you know, as a woman, I was like, girl, absolutely take your time, take your moment, and it deserves no explanation, but I also read it and it brought me back to that time in my life several years ago when I was like, Okay, I've shared my life publicly with everyone. I've opened everything up, I've committed to be honest, and now do I really have to talk about it? What do I say? What do I not say? How do I protict my family? Is it time right now? What does that look like? Is it cheesy to do it? And it's like, what the hell do you say? What's my like one paragraph statement? And reading her post that I thought was so beautifully put, um, honest, painful, vulnerable, all the things that it that it um needed to be for her, and I just I really feel for for the you know, the family, the couple, and um, there's no right or wrong way to do it right, there's no right or wrong way to stay married, there's no right or wrong way to separate, and you know, I just I hope that everybody you know listening gives them grace and the support publicly is so amazing. And then there's also like this desperate need I think is a public person for a moment of privacy and to have freedom to become unraveled and to be upset and to feel like crawling into a hole or a ball or whatever you need to do. Is it human being? It's not just a woman to woman, it's the whole family. So I I just to say that, and um, you know, we can guess all we want, right And and it's hard, it's really really hard, and anyone's going through well, you're mentioning that element is not something I can relate to. A lot of of people get divorced. They tell their family and friends and it sucks and it's hard. But the fact that you and Jana have to make a public announcement to the world and you have to craft a statement and all that stuff, that's got to be a whole other added level of stress and headache. Yeah, and even when you're bleeding, you know, and there's gunfire going off in your head and you don't really even know what to say and you're just trying to survive it. Um, And so many people do it and try to be super strong. And you know, as a woman, I've found it to be extremely valuable to give yourself that room to feel whatever you need to feel, anger, resenting, pain, letting go joy, whatever it is. Um. From the outside looking in, nobody really knows what two people are going through and why and when when the right time is UM. But it's hard. That transition is really really hard. So fortunately we have Hillary joining us today. She's going to give us some professional insight. And I just want to say quickly that all the stuff that we're talking about today, these are just possibilities. And I want to like take ownership in that that people get it right, they get it wrong, and people that are going through similar things that I've been through, that jan is going through, that her family is going through, these are just possibilities to consider um and rolling through that change. So um, yeah, let's let's get her in here. Hey, how you doing. Hi, Thanks for joining us, Thanks for having me. We're happy that you're here and trying to do this very delicate dance of talking about life, love, divorce, change, transition, curious what you might call it, doctor, all of that right? For sure, like a grief filled episode of time. For sure, that's the biggest word that comes to my mind, you know, with those kind of changes, in that kind of loss. Absolutely, I mean to tell everybody that's listening just a little bit about you, what you do, what your specialty is. I'm happy that you are. Um, you know, the queen of couples in relationship therapy, which is awesome because everybody needs as much advice in that area. Um, you know, and let's let's just see if we can give them some good positive takeaways. Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm Dr Hillary Culture. I'm a licensed clinical psychologist and normally at this point, I say, in Beverly Hills, but now operating out of my home office in another location in Gae right, but my specialties include of course couples and parenting as well as trauma and depression and anxiety. So this is right at my alley and um, yeah, so glad we're able to have this discussion in such like a timely, real life moment, even though it's so tricky, and you know it is tricky and I've been through it twice. We were just talking about that a little bit and just you know, honesty, vulnerability, I think, freedom for couples to do whatever you need to do in this process. And you know, the tricky part two is being public and you know, even today having a conversation you know, without them about them. Um. You know, I kind of want to keep it personal and and keep it relevant for other people who are struggling as well, because you know, two of my divorces were completely different. Um, both traumatic, both super painful. I have four children too, and too um. You know, there's moments of feeling like you failed. There's moments of allowing yourself freedom to change and grow, and there's just like a whole rainbow of emotions. And then publicly and trying to have game face on as a woman and trying to be a mom and showing up and going to work and finding the right narrative to tell people who care about you. Um, Like that's a whole another level of coping with separation, divorce. I mean, are we using the d work today? I mean that seems like even like there's baby steps right to getting to that place, so many things to unpack it. You made me think of two really important things, which is like just validating the mess of it, Validating how hard this is, validating how grief filled it is, how anxiety provoking it is, how depressing it is, how upsetting it is, whether you're in the public eye or not. And I think we all could agree that having this kind of split in the public eye as a whole other component, but just how difficult it is in validating that and making it normal even though this experience is sort of awful and abnormal in a certain way, anyone going through this knows that you visit these stages of upset and these stages of devastation and letting that sort of be okay. I think it's a really important message. No one is going to feel okay in the situation that Um JENNI finds herself in, or in a situation of any breakup, especially with kids. Yeah. Sure. And you also reminded me of something that I wanted to talk about as I was thinking about getting together with you today, which is that I feel like every marriage or partnership, if it ends, has its own sort of afterlife, has its own specific grief filled story and has its own journey of recovery. They're both different, almost build like a new relationship with the partner that you're splitting with, even if it's just in your mind, um, dealing with resentment, dealing with anger, dealing with the feeling of loss, dealing with co parenting, if that's on a table on the table, it's like a whole new relationship with that person has to be formed while you grieve the loss of the relationship you thought you had. Yes, you made me think of something in my first divorce. Um, both of them were really necessary. So I'm just going to speak about myself because that feels more appropriate. Um. And I remember someone giving me a book called a Working Divorce. I think that was the title. We should look it up. And it was really instrumental because my goal was to have a better relationship as exs than we had married, which is not easy, and it's not easy with children, and it's not easy depending on your partner's personality. Like my ultimate goal in life and was sort of to take the high road. Okay, lucky him, you know what I mean. And we're not always met, you know, with with with that, you know, same type of intention, but figuring out ways to shift into a new way of communicating, new boundaries, new respect even. Um. So there were there were a lot of things that I did, obviously therapy, but there were some really instrumental books that I read as well that helped me get really clear kind of on the story in my mind. Um, you know, there's always several parts to everything in the truth lies in the middle, and there's someone else's evaluation whatever. And I think when you're in trauma, and I'd love to hear your your ear sense on this. When you're in trauma where you're going through a painful shift in your life, sometimes we don't really see it for what it is. Um, you know, and my and my second divorce it was even harder because um, we had a very deep love. I was really fighting for the success of that love because I had already been divorced once and I already felt unsuccessful in marriage. I try not to use the word failure anymore. I already felt like I broke two little girl's hearts, and I was like, I'll be damned if I'm going to do that again. So I was fighting the good fight for myself, from my children, from my husband, from my own commitment to myself and my own sort of commitment to like, I'm a big girl now and I should know better, and I already this up once, and I am going to fight for this for all the right reasons and all the reasons worth fighting for. And there was it was the time when sort of together we realized that we weren't celebrating each other anymore, and we weren't being great examples for our little children, and we weren't loving each other the way that we both hoped and wanted and deserved to be loved. And we kind of leaned into that decision together. Um, but you made me, made me think of something, and I want to just bring a very real nous to this. There were times, even though what I'm saying sounds really beautiful and mature, when we hated each other where it was freaking toxic on the sports field, I mean, like painful to show up from my son at soccer, And there were times when we cried in each other's arms. There were times where we were able to connect that it gives me goose bumps and makes me emotional, but times where I needed him to let go. I kind of needed to meet him and love to let go and transition, and times when I couldn't stand the sight or smell of him or his energy. So you go through all kinds of things and then everybody gives you advice and everybody tells you how to do it, And I just think people need to give themselves grace to feel whatever the hell they're feeling when they're feeling it. Like you said, there's no appropriate timeline and you've got to roll through that as a human being without expectations, like your own journey of healing. Do you agree with that? Like, yes, I'm so glad you exposed both sides, right, because those things can coexist. They do exist, right. There can be these moments of like peace and connection and understanding and like hope for the future, and then these moments of total trauma, total devastation, total toxic toxicity, and most people and divorces experience both and saying it out loud is going to be healing for people listening. That's normal if you're visiting both sides. And I couldn't say it before because I didn't understand it before. I didn't understand or have faith that it was going to be okay when I was in it. When you're in it, you can't You usually can't see it, and I had to that were so different. One was awful, the other one was awful too. But the learning lessons and possibilities and um, the things I did wrong the first time, I think really helped me to step up the second time. And I was bleeding inside like heart broken, like there's no shame to my vulnerability, and that I wanted to stay married. I had like a deep love and maybe I wasn't great at it. Recognizing that the marriage just kind of sucked was heartbreaking. Um, recognizing my faults, recognizing him faults, but just having that sort of come to Jesus moment where I was like, it's time now, like I did everything we like, it's time, and getting to that point of letting go and saying like it's time for us to get a divorce, like like like you could die, like you feel like you're going to die, Like you can't breathe, like you physically can't breathe. Those two notes are almost entire honerable. Right. The truth of like loving someone so deeply and at the very same time knowing that it's unsafe or unhealthy to stay together, it's almost otherworldly. The pain that that creates in two people, right, and coming to that decision, devastating decision that you can't be together and be safe and healthy is, as you alluded to, is traumatic and traumatic traumatic, and so a key how about like how could we not be who we thought we were? Like when you look at someone and go, You're not who I thought you were. But maybe they are, and maybe I thought you were someone else, or maybe this relationship that we've been fighting for and holding onto it's never gonna be what I dreamed it would be. I think that was the hardest part, was the real the reality of it is what it is like I am looking like okay, and I think I've learned. I think I've learned this. This This is a hard conversation everybody, because I'm talking to a professional. Sometimes we're in our head and we think we know what we know and we don't know about what we don't know. Um, the reality of accepting the facts, like for example, I'll give you an example. I don't think I've ever talked about this, but whatever, we all grow up. We all grow up from our reality. I remember when when I went to New York and I came home and he had moved out, and yet he kept talking about how he wanted to work on it and you didn't want to divorce, and and I could have taken then in and be like, he really doesn't want to divorce me, do it? You moved out? Fact be told I went to New York, I came home you packed up and you moved out. I had to learn how to just take facts for reality, and that's really hard to do, Like when you're in your roller coaster of emotions in pain, right, like, yes, you're talking, someone's doing wrong. Thing was like, just the facts are that we and we look we may were women like we make excuses, we put our war pain on. We're super brave. We'll fight the fight. We can take it. We can take a lot. Men to mento like this isn't anybody's like fault. We don't. You know, everybody has their role in it. But it's hard to get real, right, I think you're talking about and this word was coming up as you were describing your sort of personal stories, like disorientation. Right, you're looking through one lens for so long, this lens of you and him and seeing yourself a certain way, seeing him a certain way, seeing your life a certain way, and it's totally disorienting when it starts to crumble. And so we may fill in the blanks another way, right, that doesn't include the truth, That doesn't include the facts. We can't take them in. We can't absorb it because it's too disorienting, it's too traumatic and again, even though in retrospect we might beat ourselves up or think like how could I have missed that? Or how could I have tolerated it? But I don't think those are the right questions to ask. The sort of the way to look at it is is your depth of love, your willingness to sort of persevere, or your ability to have faith in people, and then your ability to also recognize a truth when your heart and soul and mind are ready for it, right, and that happens for different people at different times, And circling back to something we said at the beginning, there's no manual, there's no judgment that should be ascribed to when that happens for people. It happens at different times for different reasons, based on the individuals involved, and we want to honor that journey for someone, not judge it or success it or try to impram it. I am all in that I am all in with Scott Patterson and I Hurt Radio podcast. This is Scott Patterson, you know me as Luke on the show Gilmore Girls, and I have a podcast called I Am All In. So you know, here's the thing about the podcast is, I've never ever, ever seen only seen one movie, and I've only seen the pilot, so a hundred fifty three episodes and three movies I have not seen. And I know you guys have been binge watching it through the COVID and you know for twenty one years, and the generations of families and mothers and daughters, and let's watch it together, guys. You know, we'll share stories. We'll share the memories. I've got a million stories to tell, especially about Sean Gunn and my loventabilia and a lot of other people too. And guess what. You can pull out your cell phones and use them during the podcast. I guess how am I gonna know you come into the diner into that. That's a different story. Listen to I Am all In on the I Heart Radio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hey everybody, and don't forget follow us on Instagram at I Am all In podcast and email us at Gilmore at I heart radio dot com. Oh you gil More fans. If you're looking for the best cup of coffee in the world, go to my website for my company scott ep dot com, s c O T t y P dot com, scotty P dot Com Grade one specialty coffee. Would you agree that we're in denial. It's sort of a coping mechanism sometimes, or there's an acceptance to just not rock the boat. Because I it was leaving was harder than staying. I want to just put that out there for everyone who's struggling. And I believe in marriage. I fight the fight. I'm like, I, I actually, I don't know if that's true. Let me think I was gonna say, I believe in forever, but forever looks different. I don't know what forever looks like because of my my past, in my history. But I but I believe in love and I believe in long term commitment. But I I, I don't know. Yeah, I think the idea that we have to give up this dream, this notion, this narrative that we had for our lives is so so devastating that the trauma of that, the fear of that keeps us paralyzed, keeps us stop, gets us rewriting the narrative so that we can stay, we can do the quote easier thing. And I know what you're saying. I mean, you play sort of underscore that, like right in a way, it was easier to stay. It makes sense that way we don't have to have that disorientation, experience that deep sense of loss and that grief, and face the world through this completely new lens. It makes so much sense that it's safer to stay, even if it's I don't know, toxic doing all the things that you or others might experience. How do you guide couples UM who are not quite like when you okay? So like we look through the lens and life is changing. It took me along a long time two accept the change and to even be okay in UM my new life like not being someone's wife like I liked being someone's wife. I liked living here together as a family. I liked I felt very safe having my husband living here, even though draw me bananas, UM, and I say that with love now because we drove each other bananas. But I there were so many parts of it that I liked, and the new life that didn't feel good, didn't feel comfortable, it felt necessary. UM. How do you help people who are like in the in the immediate shift of UM change, where they're not quite there yet to learn from the lessons and do all the things we know we're supposed to do and just the immediate coping, like what what do you tell people? How do you help people through that traumatic time, this time like now, like what they're going through. Yes, I try to remind people first and foremost or exactly what you're alluding to, which is that this is a trauma. You are in crisis, and our brains do not work during trauma and crisis. I call it sometimes brief brain. We're literally we are unable to process, we were unable to take a new information, We're unable to mobilize hopefulness. We're scientifically we can like baby brain, like you can't. Literally, there is something called a grief brain where your your neural pathways are not firing like they normally would be when you're not in trauma, when you're not in crisis. So while that might not make a person to feel sort of physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually better in the moment, that information, that sort of psycho education, is useful to know that, like this won't always be the case. I won't always feel this way, and I shouldn't rely on how I'm feeling now and how I'm feeling about the future to make predictions about what my life is going to look like. Rather, I should really lean into and acknowledge and validate that, like I'm in crisis, I'm in trauma. While it's completely uncomfortable and awful and devastating, this is kind of what it looks like and feels like, and it's all I should expect right now, and to have some faith that like the resilience that you have in there, and that um the support that you have, and that the very tools that you use to make the decision to leave will emerge as part of your support network if you will, both kind of internally and externally as you rebuild. I love to say, and I sort of alluded to this before, but I love to say to clients the idea that like, no feeling state ever stays the same, and when you really take that in and think about it, that's always true. You really can't name a feeling state that you're like that never shifted, that never changed, it never changed in its duration, intensity, etcetera. So leaning into that truth sometimes helps too. It's just kind of a factual thing. It won't always feel this way, and that you should um wait to make decisions about what you imagine your life needs to look like what you hope that your life is going to feel like until you're out of that initial phase and just lean into all the support and validation and comfort resources that you have in your life. Yeah yeah, yeah, that's no for sure. How do you feel about um also leaning into the pain? Because I like, as a working woman and a mom, and a lot of people do this, Like it's hard to sit with yourself and be in it and and I don't mean self evaluate and like, I don't mean that, but I mean just giving yourself room to cry, to sit in your own pain and feel those real emotions like I can remember feeling lost, feeling hopeless, feeling so sad and not knowing what the other side of it looked like or if it was ever gonna get like and and my my natural self wanted to just get super busy because I'm so good at that. I'm so good at like multitasking me burying myself, like work was my gentle therapeutic exercise if I were to just cram my schedule. I have fabulous friends at a great support system, and I was never strong enough as a younger woman to not do that. I think that's why I stayed married for so long because I was generally happy and kind of rolling through it. I had to force myself to let myself be really sad and lonely, and not in a punishing way. I had to allow myself to sit in the and feel it, and it did not feel good, and I would have much rather called My girlfriend had been like, hey, there's so many ways to drown, you know, to to drown on that. So I just was curious, um, what your thoughts are on that, because it's so much easier to get busy and just buff it out. I love that you're asking this question because it is critical, a requirement, mandatory to move through the pain, to sit in it, to feel it, to process it. Because what happens is that if we suppress it, minimize it, avoid it, dismiss it, find ways to make it go away, even healthy ways, even supportive ways, it gets stuck inside our body, like there's still emotional rent to pick right. Even if we find ways push it away, it's gonna come up and out in some way, although it's going to come up and out in an unhealthy, unproductive, even toxic way. So while every part of our mind, body, soul, wants to reject sitting in that pain. It's a critical part of this and we can do it in bits and pieces. Right, It doesn't have to be a deluge. If we don't have to um, sort of wallowing it every minute, every minute of every day. We can use those compartmentalization skills that you talked about, where you're sort of like, okay, it's I've been six hours into this today, Like I'm putting it away. I know it's going to be there for me. I'm calling that girlfriend and I'm you know, having that conversation, I'm bearing myself in work, etcetera. But he stops. But I do think it takes the kind of consciousness that you're talking about. It's really hard to access when you're going through it, but people who are listening can more deliberately think through it, like I need to give myself space to feel this pain, otherwise it's going to get stuck inside of me, and I'm going to get stuck, you know, sort of paralleled in justice, like no man's land, where you're not moving forward and um, you know, you're not back where you used to be. You're just sort of in the middle trying to avoid pain, like such a human nature kind of I'll do it, and it's real talk. It's way easier if you're not going to do it. That's that's part of the relief that we need. We need a respite from all of it. What we want to be conscious about, Like, if that's the only strategy we employ, it's going to be really hard to move through it. That's part. I'm glad you said that rest period in it, because, um, depending on how intensive personality is, it's not like one way or the other. And it's like you said, it's now I'm understanding that you know the clinical side of it too, which I didn't understand in it. So this is a learning um show for me too. UM. But making those those decisions and really understanding what's best You're like, we clearly don't know what's best for us because we just our whole world just freaking imploded and we're in survival mode. I do want to say something positive about this. Um an Easier said than done, because I'm I'm years healed in my process. I don't know if it ever totally heals, but I've evolved so much as a woman and a mother through my experiences. UM. The time that I gave myself alone and I was never alone in my whole life, like a whole series of bad choices. I was a bad picker as a young woman, didn't miss a beat in the dating world, got married really young, had four kids young. I mean, I just I just was a lover like I was not meant to be alone. I thought being alone was not by choice. I did not want to be alone. I would have much rather been the arms of the next best thing, and it would have felt a hell of a lot better than crying myself to sleep every night, which I did. Um, and I needed to The choice to be alone for me, being a mother looking back now was probably the most valuable awakening of my life because I had little ones and I have four little ones. Right. I never had a moment and I thought I was cruising. I thought I was doing really well at that speed. Need Um, I was cruising so great that I didn't even know my marriage was well in a park. But my point is that moment that I life handed me right. However you look at it, I'm really spiritual, so it depends on your belief system. But that moment, that transitional time in my life, that was really hard. Gave me the greatest gift as a woman that I have ever experienced. And I'm almost I'll be fifty this year. I never spent time alone. I never fought through that uncomfortable nous. I never slowed down to really listen to the language of my own soul, my heart. I wasn't strong enough. Um, and then I had a whole boatload of kids, so I didn't have time to do that. And any moment that I somebody, I had, somebody needed that time alone. Even though it was dark and hard. Um, there were so many powerful moments of light, and I learned so much about myself as a woman. But I don't think I could have learned with a man laying in bed next to me. I don't think I could have learned with a man be having coffee with me in the morning, or a baby or whatever light whatever your life narrates. So I just I just want to say that that, you know, in the hardest times of our life, I found that. Um, they were powerful moments of self discovery for me as a woman, and I'm really grateful for that. Um. It wasn't the way I wanted my story, my love story to end, I had a different idea of marriage. I think I was in love with the entity of marriage more than I was in love with my marriage. And I would have bet my life that I would have stayed married forever first time. That's who I thought I was. I believed in forever. I thought I was gonna have this happy ever after family. We were all gonna my daughters were going to grow up and know that you get married and you get to kinda on that man and it's forever, mom Like that broke my heart. But I learned so much about myself during that time because I never had that time. Yes, as a woman, I mean you're talking about being prescribed that as but being prescribed is kind of quiet, that's kind of rum for self reflection. That yielded something that perhaps you wouldn't have found another way. Do you get that as a as a wife and a mother unless you are a badass evolved and you know about boundaries, Which my other wish for everybody listening is create those boundaries while you are married, while you are in it, before you're a mother, when you're a young woman, carry that through your life, your love, whatever your chaos is. How do you create those boundaries when you don't know how desperately you need them, and like losing sight of that woman behind the scenes, Like I didn't know this in my twenties thirties. I just figured it out, to be honest, creating those boundaries for growth, for stillness, for quiet time, like you said, for just selfishness, which is not selfish. It's like this is like your this is your your lifeboat right here. Um, we don't know how to do as a younger woman. We're not taught do agree like we're not like my mom didn't teach me and you had a great mom. Thank god. I have a beautiful mom who was soulful and loving and romantic. Not great at marriage either, but she was a lot of awesome things. But she didn't teach me or like, we're not taught our generation about boundaries and about putting yourself first and that that's okay, And yeah, I'm not raising my daughters like that. I'm raising my daughters to live out loud and and to know what feels good and to know what feels bad. And I'd like to raise them to believe in forever. But through their life challenges, I'm teaching them that sometimes change is necessary, and then it's okay. And it doesn't mean you bail when it gets hard. It's not that it's it's sometimes change is necessary. And I think that's growth. And that was my freedom in the trauma of my divorce, being married to my soul mate, who I thought was my soul the love of my life. Like I had to define giving up and failing and call it let letting go. And I had to move through that um and bleed inside and then he'll slowly and healed together here separately. Ah, all kinds like this is like we could talk for hours every day about this. You know, you need real moments. You need freedom, I think, male female, to do whatever you need to do during your time. Yes, you are. You touched on so many important things. I'll pick out the now. We're all over the place. But it's like it so related. But the sort of consciousness that narrative around the boundaries and having time and space and deep thought around what you'll tolerate and what you want, what you won't, what's best for you and what works for you and what really defines love for you and what are your deal breakers and all of those things. Being able to tolerate the possibility of loss, the possibility of disconnection, the possibility of not having the fairy tale from the outside looking in, and the service of taking care of oneself, right, the service of taking care of I'm writing this down because you know, it's so amazing, Like when you listen to podcast to everybody like there's so much information. I'm like a note. I'm like taking notes because we're so lucky to have you and your expertise. You know, not everybody you can afford therapy knows how to get Like it's just a weird time, right, not everybody even believes in it. Um, the service of taking care of yourself, that's amazing, right, But that then to your point, around people don't do that, run how we take how we raise our girls, and that kind of narrative, right, getting really specific, really mindful around those things probably isn't something that happens enough when our girls, well really our kids. But we're talking about sort of a specific pocket of moving through the world, right, that that needs to be much more conscious and much more brought out and thought about. And sometimes a crisis, a trauma like a divorce, starts getting someone who really hasn't reflected on that in like a real way, in a real way that connects to thoughts and actions, and setting up a life that resonates and connects with those core beliefs sort of hasn't really been done before. So that can be the press of his upon which one is standing as they embark in the afterlife of a of a marriage. Is the possibility of kind of discovering those things about that's so beautiful. Um, the service of taking care of yourself, knowing how to create boundaries. Not you said something else and I wrote it down, and I don't want to interrupt you. Um, I'll and I'll share like a little personal story you said, defining what's a deal breaker? So you have you ever seen those little like decks of cards or those little you go to like a spar or whatever you pull out like a card and it has a message for you on it, or like you know, those little like spiritual like little decks whatever. I like, goofy stuff like that. So, um, I think I was at my hair my hair salon one day and I pull out the little card and the cards said exactly this quote. I still have it today. How crazy is it? And it said, what is a deal breaker in your relationship. So I was like, huh and my relationship was fun at the time. I was like, oh, I don't know, let me think about that. I put in my wallet and it was really close to my time of acceptance in my relationship and I came across it and it was like my ding. It was like my light, my sirens song. I was like, that is a deal breaker in my relationship and that happens all the time and wake up Brooke like, okay, yeah, thank you. I like I still have that. And I kept that card like in the little clear part in my wallet where your license is, so I didn't see my license, I saw deal breaker card. And it was just like that reminder. That's subtle, little reminder of you know what, like not okay. Some things are are not okay, and um, you know, it's a delicate dance to even talk about this because I'm not pointing fingers or anything. I had beautiful moments and horrific It's my marriage and I'm accountable as well as much as he has for all of them. It's not a male female thing at all. This is like a real conversation and Noobia's conversation about defining what feels bad. And I talked to my kids about that a lot. Recognize what feels bad because if something feels bad, look into that, like dissect that, like get down in that. Don't ignore that. If something feel it could be anything, could be your friend, It could be a tone, it could be like a sense memory, it could be sub conscious stuff. You know that we don't even know about pay attention to things that feel bad. And I don't know why we're so accustomed in our society to this like mediocre life, this mediocre Mr good enough, Mrs good enough marriage, that's just like good enough. And you know, you know, easy for us to say in this world, like we have this fabulous life, But why are we subscribing two it's good enough? Yeah? What is that? Yeah? I mean I think there are a number of factors that intersect that. I think there are often a fear of assertiveness, right, and I say that we're deliberately not aggression, but it's sort of willing to stand up for what one feels I deserve or scary scary scary to um to sort of um uh get the sort of get the disappointment of the person that we were dealing with right to bring that towards us, to have them be angry at us, to have them be disappointed us by saying this isn't working for me. How can we make this look different? Can you imagine those words of anybody that if we were all mature enough before the fan to just say, hey to your lover or your partner, you're your best friend, your your coworker, this isn't really working for me. How can we can we have a dialogue about making this better? Like if I would have done that early on my marriage, instead of just fighting it or getting resentment or shutting down or shutting up or waiting until just like opening up the narrative in a in any relationship, just talking about what feels good and what feels bad, sensually, sexually, intimately, with your kids, with life, love, work, all of that tools Like we you know, I just feel like we're we're not raised like with this tool set, this this toolbox, we have it inside of us. You know, I I guide female retreats, not since COVID, but um, you know I I have a mindful wellness, mindful fitness app called Brooke Brook Body, and it's so much more than just fitness. It's very much about mind, body and soul. But I, through my own transition and my growth and probably my pain, I sort of fell into this female retreat UM program and I loved it. I probably did six of them when I was healing through a marriage. So I learned so much from other women going through what they're going through while I was fighting my best fight. And I learned, um what I wanted to do. I learned what not to do. I learned how feelings are buried under the rug. I learned how women lost sight of who they wanted to. I learned how to sort of become the woman I wanted to be if you will, and um, you know I I just brought that up because there's that transition, you know, that realization that work that time. It's so it's hard work. It's really really hard work. And I was so blessed to be able to do that. And things that you're talking about like being assort of you know, being strong and not being labeled as a bit, you know, giving yourself permission, not feeling like a victim like I remember, I did a whole retreat and it was about permission and allowing women a lot of women came because they needed strength, and we took a shift and it became about allowing themselves to become unraveled. And they're like, what, I didn't come here to ball apart. And I'm like, well, maybe you need ball apart and not carry the way to the world all the time. And there's like this release that happens. I think when we can own some of that, that struggle and that pain, because you know, most of us are really good at just powering through stuff and not slowing down to become unraveled. And um, there's all these labels, you know. Yeah, I think part of like what you were talking about, being able to assert yourself, being able to ask for what you want, being able to say, I didn't look what happened back there? Can we talk about? It is so confirred. What's so confronting for so many reasons. Right, we have to potentially court people's disappointment. We have to face our own vulnerabilities around uh, potentially someone abandoning us, someone being angry at us, someone deciding, um that we're not we're not worth fighting for in that moment. Right, there's a lot to confront when we take the risk of saying I need more, I need something different, this isn't working for me. Right, we have to stand in our own skin. We just have to be like present and own our own needs. And a lot of ways there's a lot of messages that remain around women that that that don't completely encourage that and hold those places right, And so it's super confronting to do what sounds simple, which is to do a version of like, hey, like what you said that there really hurt me, Like can we think about that together? Which is like what I talked about a couple of therapy, Right, that's what I talk about when I do coaching in the workplace, a version of that, being able to just say, like that didn't work for me, that hurt my feelings, that made me uncomfortable. Can we sit and talk about it. It seems so basic and straightforward, but it's super confronting, super vulnerable for everybody, and so being able to get that, yeah, I get that what you're saying, because as a young woman, I didn't know how to do that I need. I knew how to go and push you away and shut you out or maybe get angry or maybe go I'm never going to try that again because that feels bad, or or I knew how to just not hide from it, but just avoid it as a woman, and maybe I'm not listening and thinking name I'm where. I'm the other side of it now as a woman. Now, I speak all of it because it's my only way to be seen, right. And I remember when we first started our podcast, Intimate Knowledge, and we had a conversation um Megan Edmunds and and Leela Deville has been amazing intimacy coach, and we were all trying to define what intimacy is. We were having that conversation with our audience. It was amazing how what a struggle it was to define that word, and how many different opinions there were, and the common denominator we really came up with it. It was it was about being heard, being seen being heard. Um. I thought it was so fascinating, Like how good that feels when someone just goes OK, I get that, I understand that, or maybe they don't understand and say I don't understand that. Tell me more about that. I could imagine if your partner was like, I don't know what you mean, can you tell me about that? You'd be like oh my god, yes, yes, yeah, well that when you said that actually kind of giving bills, that really distills it down to I think a universal truth around intimacy, if we all really are vulnerable enough to consider it, right, is that that is what intimacy feels like for all of us, men and women alike. That if we're seeing, if we're heard, if we're appreciated, if we're known in our vulnerable spots, we feel close to somebody. And I'll use that And it's so confronting to both be witnessed as being vulnerable and to witness another invulnerability. Right. Yes, it's triggering, and so we all find different ways to avoid it, whether that's by accepting things that don't feel good to us, glossing over, getting super busy, um, engaging in all sorts of behavior to dismiss, avoid, suppress, minimize, and that stuff becomes residue between people relationships, and sometimes there's so much residue you can't come back. Yeah. Yeah, it's amazing work that you do. UM. I remember being in therapy and just being so frustrated because sometimes you just can't see yourself and I can't see your partner because you're so heated in your own reaction mode. And you know, it's kind of like therapy one on one. You know, you gotta stop, you gotta listen. You know, it's it's really so hard to do. UM. I also want to say, just haven't been there, and please agree or disagree with this. I really believe now looking back that marriage doesn't define you, and certainly divorce does not define you men and women. UM. Having a broken family, I don't even like that word, but so redesigning of a family. Like I, I really struggled with who I was afterward because I wanted to be married and I liked being a wife, but I also struggled with the consequences of my marriage is and the that way it was going to affect my children negatively, UM and I and I and I do own that negatively. But I've also been able to get them so much love and reassure them that they have two homes and two places of love, and UM, I've reminded them, you know, that they're not alone in that. And you know, I remember my children were like, oh my god, we're the only ones like that when they were young, when you know, we look at the look at the statistics which you know not mean nothing. But I had to really find words. UM, I had to take ownership. I had to get really real with them, and I had to try to keep an age appropriate open dialogue with my children at different ages. And I also, UM, I know we could go on and on and on, So I I want to just end my thought on this and that I fought the hardest to stay open and to continue to believe in love. And I really believe in love, and I really lost a deep love and my heart wanted to just just like close up because it was way easier, and I fought and fought and fought and fought to UM, I want to love again, not right away, but to be capable of loving again, and to not lose hope in the possibility of a different kind of love, and to know that love after a while, after a while, So I'm going to fast forward to knowing that love comes in different shapes and sizes, and it sounds different and it feels different. And that was hard. But I really fought to keep my heart open, and I talked to my children about that a lot, and even in pain when friends let them down own and boyfriend's breakup and like I was saying, like just love, like just have an open heart and UM, in that space, you know, friendship can come in and comfort can come in, and family members and partners in different shapes and sizes, and UM, I guess that's my my, my, my wish, Like make that a goal, Like I'm going through the dark times and pain of love, Like just keep loving yourself, love yourself, let love in. Um it's easier said than done. I couldn't have said that to you three years ago. Well, you're you're talking about a really important concept that you now can reflect on in retrospect. But that love has different seasons and show different ways in different forms. And that's part of what you've learned in your journey is that there was a season for your marriages. And some of that was amazing and beautiful and full of important lessons, and some of the it was devastating, collapsing and flattening. Right, But at the end that if you maintain like, UM, an open relationship with love, that love isn't just one thing. It's not just like amazing connection and intimacy. It's like complex and down and ebbs and flows, and that's like real love. Yeah, right, I mean, and who are we just like say, what real love looks like and you know what marriage looks like or what the perfect family looks like, Like I have a blended family. We've been through a lot this past year, and the pandemic like brought us all together. Like I've never felt so much joy and happiness in my home. I didn't know when that was going to come again. Actually it's happy or vibes and energy is better now than it ever was in my life. So that's sort of redesigning of my life. Um that rebuilding, right, taking ownership with that, becoming the architect of my life, like you know, and being confused and lost and not knowing where getting there. Like I have love in my life right now, and let me tell you it is different. It feels different, it looks different, and it is so beautiful. Is so different. But sometimes I'm even like what was I thinking? Like what was I doing? And you know you said that in the beginning, we ask ourselves why I tolerated, why I did this, why I didn't do that. Well, we don't know we're in it when we're in it, So you know that grace, that that that grace to just just be where you need to be through the process. Well, And I love I just want to highlight something that you've said a couple of times in here, that it's so important around divorce and families splitting in children and the year of what the impact is going to be on the kids and the guilt and the worry that comes along with it. And I do a lot of work in the parenting space, and and I love to say a version of like, our job is not to not have bad things happen in our lives or for our children not to witness it or be around it. I mean, if we could have, we would, but that's not really our job. Our job up is to sort of send a message that like, yes, tricky, hard, difficult things happen, and like here's how you stand and find your way through it, how you build resonance and resilience and acknowledge the pain, sitting deal with it, mobilized resources, and like stay graceful and get through it right. And yes, like I mean, as you're reflecting on how your family showed up in this last year, that that's part of the gift that you've given them is not trying to shield them from the pain, not try to pretend that there aren't mistakes or difficulties, but rather that like, this is what it looks like when you're trying to push through. And so when they're trying to push through stuff and their young lives and as they get older, they will use that as part of their narrative. And that is the gift we want to give our kids, not the idea that like tricky stuff doesn't happen. Yeah, thank you, Oh my gosh, you've given us so much great advice. Thank you for being with us. I I really, I really enjoyed this when you tell the audience where they can find you and um connect with you. Of course, I'm just sort of rebuilding my Instagram page and I'm about to start populating it with a lot of information around couples and paraging and all that stuff. And so that's at Dr Hillary l A. So it's h I L l A r Y Dr Hillary l A. And then at my website, Dr Hillary gold Shart dot com. Thank you so much, so valuable. I love talking to you, and you're super compassionate and gentle. Thank you so nice to meet you you as well. Good bye. So while you're on with Dr gold schert E News just came up with a story about Joan and Mike. Yeah, they have obtained her divorce filing today and it reads that they are separating from Jenna, separating from the former football player, and the reasons are given are inappropriate marital conduct or reconcilable differences and adultery. Additionated documents revealed Jen and Mike entered a post nuptial agreement and she wishes aircraft. They of the two children. She asks Mike to pay alimony and cover the costs of her legal fees. It's so freaking ugly that we get to I'm coming from a public figure now that all the gory details are there. I mean I remember going through it and like the financial public share, like why has that any of anyone's business? But but but we're in it, and you know, Jan and Micro in it, and I think that's it's hard when you see that and you read it, and it's going to keep popping up and showing up, and you're gonna be sitting at home and you're watching the news, and so that's all part of that big picture. We're in the business, right, so ah, but that's you know, that's tough. And UM, you know, I do want to say that, um Jan is going to be back next week. UM, so everybody could take a deep breath right there. UM, And you know what, it's hard, like they gotta they gotta roll through it. And I'm so happy that I was able to come on and fill in today and you know, give her a moment. And and I'm so protective of, like my friends privacy and I'm so sensitive to even talking about people's personal life. And I feel like, you know, this episode today was about a lot of things, and having Dr Hillary here is so valuable. And I'm really comfortable, you know, sharing my journey because you know it's come full circle now, but you know, it's always changing, and um, there's always an opportunity to do better and to learn and to be better and to keep healing and growing. And UM, I just I don't know. I I meet the whole subject matter with such tremendous compassion, um, and it brings me back to that place of of you know, it's it's a it's a painful time. And um, although the public support and the comments and all of that, you know, a really feel can feel really good and really supportive. I remember there were times in my life I needed to just shut it down, I need to check out. I remember posting my statement, you know, like Jenna did last week, and I read it on People dot Com next week. Last week, I remember feeling like a sense of relief and the time and energy that went into that, and part of me was like, do I have to do this? Do I owe this to everyone? And then part of me was like appreciating the love and the care. But it's just like it just got real, like when you have to read it, I have to read about your life. That's that's really hard. That's hard. Well, thank you for being here today. I can't think advantage already better. Who could have given us better perspective on the situation? So thank you so much. I appreciate it. I'm no expert. It was good to have Hillary to pitch and catch that, but I meant all of it, and I love to come back and um, I just want to send them a lot of love and healing light and energy. And I'm easy to find as well, So I'm here. I'm here. Msssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

Whine Down with Jana Kramer

At the end of a long day, nothing is better than winding down and decompressing with a good friend,  
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