Ep #28: Divorce Confidence: Overcome Fear and Embrace Change

Lauren Fair: You’re listening to the Sensible Split Podcast, episode 28. Today, I’m talking about building the confidence necessary to create a new beginning for yourself.

The Sensible Split is a podcast for smart but overwhelmed women in search of a roadmap to a successful separation and divorce. If you are looking for guidance in navigating the practical, legal, and emotional aspects of divorce with confidence, this is the show for you. Here’s your host, Master Certified Life and Divorce Coach, Divorce Attorney, and Mediator, Lauren Fair.

Hi there. I’m recording this episode the day before New Year’s Eve. My daughter’s birthday is on New Year’s Eve and I am actually leaving right after I finished recording today to take her up to Disneyland for her birthday. That’s what she wanted, so that’s what we’re doing, and I’m really excited about that. But I wanted to chat with you first before I take off.

You know, the other thing that’s kept me busy this holiday, I know everybody’s busy for different reasons, so I’m going to share with you a little flavor of what my busy is and how that relates to today. I’ve been busy moving my office. It’s been a massive undertaking, but we’re in the new space now and it’s lovely. We’re settling in and it’s a nice start to the new year to be starting fresh in a new beautiful space.

And as part of this move, I’ve actually had to disassemble my podcast setup and I haven’t had a chance with the move and the holidays to get that reestablished in my new space. So my audio for today’s episode may be a little less than ideal, but bear with me because it’s an important one.

So in addition to moving, I’ve also been busy goal setting for 2025. I do this every year. I set personal goals for myself, I set business goals for myself, and I make my travel plans for the next year as well. No matter what your approach to the end of the year and the beginning of the new year is, it’s a natural time to reevaluate your life and contemplate things you want to change in the new year.

I’ve been thinking about those of you who are contemplating creating the kind of new beginning in the new year that requires you to go through the divorce process first. Change is daunting for us as human beings. Our brains find safety in things staying the same, even when our situations are not pleasant ones. Staying in an unfulfilling marriage can naturally be more comfortable for our brains than making big changes in our lives because the familiar can feel safer than the unknown. This could not be more true than in unhappy marriages.

For many women, their fear about moving forward with divorce, of going through the changes and the adversity that are part of the divorce process, keep them stuck in marriages that they no longer wish to be in for far longer than they actually want to be in them. That’s how much change is something we often want to avoid. This is a natural thing that our brains do.

Add on top of this fact that we’re talking about more than just a change to our personal lives. We’re talking about many changes to it. There are many changes on various fronts that happen in divorce, plus navigating an unfamiliar legal process as well. So of course, deciding to move forward with divorce and creating a new life for yourself can feel daunting if you are lacking the confidence necessary to overcome those natural mental hurdles that you have to clear to move forward.

If you lack the confidence to move forward with what you really want, or even for those of you who have already started moving forward, but maybe encountering adversity in that process, I understand what it’s like to be where you are. And it’s very easy to get stuck there. And when we’re heading into the new year, you know, we’re always reevaluating, okay, it’s a new year, how do I wanna spend the time that I have here?

So how do you get unstuck and keep moving forward? You have to build the confidence necessary to move forward. What are the major components that go into creating this type of confidence? There are two that come to mind for me. The first one is having a solid plan for your next steps. And the second one is being secure in yourself and your abilities. So in short, it’s a combination of strategy and mindset. I’m going to talk about each one of these in a little more detail for you.

So with respect to the first one, having a solid plan for your next steps, simply put, having your ducks in a row about how to move forward smartly when it comes to timing, logistics, legal process options, et cetera, is critical. This is the strategy for how you move forward. I talk a lot about strategy in other episodes of the podcast, so I’d urge you to check those out. But you develop a strategy by working with divorce professionals, ideally a divorce coach first and then you build out from there the additional professional support that you may need in your situation.

That’s going to vary from situation to situation. And that might be, you know, legal advice from an attorney. It might be financial advice from the appropriate financial professional. But it’s important to get a game plan for that in the beginning so that you can really understand what’s ahead and how to best prepare for it. So that you can save time, money, energy, and also importantly, get the outcome that is going to be important for you.

There are a lot of what ifs at that stage and those what ifs are really questions waiting for answers. And so we wanna think about what are those questions that need to be answered and get them answered as much as you can at the outset.

It’s going to help reduce your fear. And if you are worried about, you know, what the answer is to something, I can tell you that just getting the answer to a question, even if it’s an answer that you don’t want to hear, can actually help relieve fear because you are at that point understand what the potential likelihood is and then your brain can go to work in solving for how to adapt to whatever that potential outcome may be.

But when you don’t know what the potential outcome may be and your mind is swirling around the unknown, it can actually be more stressful and create more fear than just knowing an answer that actually might not be as bad as you think it might be, or even if it is, then you at least have that information and can strategize about how to handle that as best as possible. So if the worst-case scenario fear happens, then what will you do?

And this kind of leads us into the second piece of what’s important in creating confidence to move forward with divorce and that is being secure in yourself and your abilities. A lot of the women I speak to who are facing divorce have eroded self-confidence, and that can be for various reasons. Sometimes it’s because of how they have evolved in the relationship as the relationship has broken down. So there are just pieces of us that change and can be kind of worn down in navigating a relationship that we’re trying to make work for various reasons and you kind of lose a bit of yourself in doing that. Sometimes it can be due to things that your spouse may have said to you during the marriage. This is especially true when you’ve been repeatedly put down, for example. And then sometimes there are women that just never felt very confident in themselves to begin with, and that is probably from life experiences that they had growing up. So the good news is that if you are not confident though in yourself and your ability to handle what may come your way in divorce because of one of these types of scenarios that you’ve encountered in life or something else, maybe, that can be changed.

What makes someone secure in themselves and their abilities or not secure in themselves or their abilities? It is their thoughts about themselves. You can learn how to build belief in yourself and your abilities if you do not already have that belief. And that is really the first step in taking control of your life and your next steps.

So what do you need to be secure in yourself and your abilities about? It’s kind of general to say, you know secure in yourself and your abilities, but particularly what do we need to be secure about in this particular situation in order to move forward? You’ve got to be secure in yourself and your ability to handle adversity.

Having to face adversity feels daunting. For some, it can be paralyzing. When you think about encountering adversity, what comes to mind for you? So what do we do in order to start to build confidence around our ability to handle adversity?

So here’s what you can do. First, you gotta expect some adversity. It’s gonna be hard in some way. Something about this transition is probably going to be hard. There’s going to be difficult circumstances, difficult emotions, difficult conversations. Most likely going to encounter some kind of conflict in this process. Even in the most amicable of situations, there can be conflict. It’s just a degree of how much of it there is. So whether it has to do with how you resolve the process with your spouse, whether it has to do with how your children adapt, whether it has to do with how you adapt to post-divorce life, there’s probably going to be some level of adversity. So let’s just expect that that’s going to be there. But you can take adversity and turn it into an opportunity in your life.

So we’re going to shift what may be your already existing relationship with adversity that it’s a bad thing that we want to avoid as much as possible. But what if it were something that could be an opportunity for you? To evolve to become that next version of you that does their next chapter in life differently? How do you want to deal with life challenges when they come your way? What kind of person do you want to be when adversity comes? And there’s no judgment here. If you decide that that adversity is too much for you and you want to stay in your marriage because you don’t wanna face it, that’s okay. But I know many of you are listening because you don’t want adversity to control the rest of your life.

So what kind of person do you wanna be when it comes your way? When you can create an intentional relationship with adversity, you stop letting adversity control you. As we become better at facing adversity, we get closer to self-actualization. So what does that mean? Like becoming the highest and best version of ourselves, really testing out what is my capacity. You find out what you’re really capable of when you’re faced with adversity. What can you really do?

Adversity helps you explore your capacity as a human. What if it’s not all negative emotions before you in navigating adversity? There will be negative emotions probably at some point in the process. For some of you, there will be more than others. But what if it’s not all negative in navigating adversity? What if it were possible to actually find positive emotion in navigating adversity, in exploring your capacity as a human to tackle challenges? What would that model be, not only for yourself and your confidence for the future in navigating other, you know, contexts of adversity, but also if you have kids, what does that show them?

So what can I choose to think about myself and my ability to handle adversity? I want you to think about that. Here are some examples that you could choose to think about because when I say choose to think, you have to bear in mind that naturally you’re going to want to avoid adversity. That’s the case for most people anyway, but you don’t have to let your natural response to that control your next steps.

You can redirect your mind to a different way of thinking about adversity. It’s just that it’s biological programming and it’s also just past history of how we learn to think about adversity that has us reacting to it in a way that, you know, is avoidant oftentimes. So we have to choose a different way to approach it. And then from there, when you think about adversity differently, you’ll feel differently and you’ll take different action.

So here are some examples of how you can think about yourself and your ability to handle adversity. So I’m strong and this can make me stronger. I know so many of you are strong women. You’re strong because of all of what you have put into your marriage to make it work, the way that you have shown up for your kids, even when things have been really tough, right? For many of you, what you’re doing at work, whether that’s inside the home or outside the home, right? You’ve been through a lot already. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that, what you’ve already overcome.

So how is it true that you are strong and this could actually make you stronger? How about here’s another one. I can overcome anything. I can figure all of this out. That’s one that I really love because all of this is figureoutable. It’s not all pleasant, but I can figure it all out. I can feel overwhelmed and move forward anyway. I can feel scared and move forward anyway. I can learn to navigate difficult emotions and not let them control my actions.

So what is that belief about yourself that would be helpful to you to think, to feel trusting of yourself to handle adversity? Maybe it’s one of the ones I just offer you, maybe it’s something else. I want you to play around with it. What do you need to think to feel trusting of yourself to know when to move forward even if you can’t know exactly how the circumstances will play out?

There’s a lot of strategy that can be put into place. There’s a lot of planning, but you’re one part of this process. And so the actual circumstances that develop in your divorce process cannot be totally known at the beginning. So what can you do to position yourself to trust that you can handle whatever it is that comes your way?

I want you to also think about the negative emotions that are likely to come up in the process and how you would naturally react to those things versus how you may want to react to them. So for example, if I took the actions I wanna take, what negative emotions do I think I would feel? I want you to think about that question. Is the prospect of feeling those feelings holding me back? If you’re not moving forward because you’re scared or overwhelmed or because of some other negative emotion that you envision is going to come up, what do you think about that?

Do you want that to be your reason you don’t move forward? Or do you not want that negative emotion to hold you back? Because you can feel a negative feeling and the experience of that feeling does not have to dictate your next steps. You can actually learn to harness those difficult emotions and the first step is being open to the idea that you can learn to do this.

When you don’t have that confidence to move forward to create a life you want, you’re going to suffer longer than you have to. What are you not doing because of your lack of confidence? What is it costing you? What would be different about your life if you could be more confident? What would you do if you were more confident about moving forward toward the life you want?

We’re talking about confidence to move forward with divorce here, but these skills are not only applicable to divorce, but to building confidence in other areas of your life as well. What would be different about your life in general if you had more confidence?

Learning to navigate divorce with savvy can actually be a confidence building experience. Why? Because you get opportunities to show yourself what you are capable of, and that allows you to more easily access thoughts about yourself that generate the feeling of confidence. But you have to build enough confidence to move forward with that process first. If you don’t have the components of divorce competence nailed down, you’re likely to not make efficient decisions in this process or you may not make decisions that will ultimately produce the results you want for the process and for your life.

And ultimately, you just may not move forward at all. I can help you with developing both of these components of competence so you can pursue the life you want in the new year. I know you can do this if you want to. That’s what I’ve got for you this week. Happy New Year, and I will be back with you soon in the next episode.

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Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of The Sensible Split. If you’re looking for more information and guidance to help you successfully navigate a divorce, please visit www.TheSensibleSplit.com.

Please remember, the information provided in this podcast is for general informational purposes only and is not intended to be, and should not be taken as, legal advice on any particular matter. The content of this podcast is not tailored to your specific, unique circumstances, and its transmission does not create or constitute an attorney-client relationship. Listeners are strongly advised to seek the advice of qualified legal professionals regarding their individual situation.