andrea (00:00)

When you're hurting and somebody tells you to just breathe and take this divorce one day at a time, you probably want to throat punch them. I hear you. I have been there. And today I'm gonna give you a little bit of that, but please don't throat punch me. I'm gonna go through things that don't actually have to be solved today, and what you can do to keep yourself sane on this.

Really quick mini episode of How Not to Suck a Divorce.

I'm gonna talk about something that sounds really simple. And when you're going through a divorce, it feels impossible. And that is what I just mentioned: having that urge to get everything figured out by EOD.

And you're not gonna have it figured out by EOD. And for those of you who don't know what the hell EOD stands for, consider yourself very lucky. EOD stands for end of day. I'm totally rolling my eyes because I hate the fact that I know that corporates speak. If you have had a friend or an attorney or a therapist tell you, just keep putting one foot in front of the other. Just take it one day at a time. You probably

want to throat punch them or roundhouse kick them to the balls or just roll your eyes if you're not as aggressive. Because when you're in pain, you don't want to take it one day at a time. You want the fucking answers. You want the certainty. You want to know that your kids are going to be okay. You want to know that you're going to be okay financially. And you want to know whether you're making all the right decisions because you're questioning everything. It's kind of like reading a book and wanting just to get to the very end.

Or watching a movie and you know that somebody's about to die at the end because they're showing those pictures of the mom at the very beginning, and you're like, something's gonna happen to that mom, something's gonna happen to that dog. And you just want to fast forward, get to that part, know all the bad things, and finish the movie. And that makes total sense. Because the uncertainty, when is the mom gonna die, when is the dog gonna get hit by a car, that's scary. It's unsettling.

And it makes us feel even more anxious. And today I want to give you permission. My God, I sound like such a therapist. Somebody kill me. I'm gonna give you permission to not solve everything by EOD. I do this all the time. I gotta give myself this permission because you guys, I am struggling right now I'll tell you.

This is a hard season for me. So I need to take my own advice. You don't need to know what your life is going to look like three years from now. You want to know. You want to know your whole future today. You don't need to know. You don't need to know if you're going to get remarried. You don't need to know where you're going to live forever and ever. You don't need to know exactly how things are going to unfold. You really just need enough information to get you to the next step.

Anything else is going to overwhelm you. You also don't need to have every single legal move mapped out for you right now, or every financial move mapped out for you. Obviously, you need to have a good attorney, you have to have the right strategy, you need to understand your options. But there is a difference between being informed and

Obsessively trying to predict the possible outcomes. You have to stop yourself if you're running all these different scenarios with your attorney saying, okay, well, now what if this happens? What if the judge does this? What if my ex does this? What happens if we lose? What happens if we don't lose? Am I gonna regret it? The reality is your attorney cannot answer all of those questions for you. You can go through that scenario once or twice.

But then beyond that, there is a certain amount of ambiguity here. You're not gonna know a hundred percent how this thing is gonna play out. And that makes us spiral. you will spend six hours going down the rabbit hole. And that does not get you closer to a solution. That gets you closer to taking more anxiety pills.

Running to the bathroom over and over again, maybe you'll lose a few pounds of water weight, but that's about it. And the third thing, and this one might be the hardest, is you don't need to figure out how to feel okay right now. There are things that you're not gonna feel okay with. It's okay to not be okay. I mean, God, we've heard that one.

But you literally just have to figure out how you're going to get through today. Sometimes people will tell you, like, just take it one day at a time. What they're really trying to say is stop demanding that today's version of you solves all the problems for tomorrow's version of you. That also sounds like a therapist talking, but

You only have what you have today. And if today you need to go get a cold brew with cold foam and sit in your car and listen to Alanis Morisset because that helps you, then do that.

You don't need to do everything perfectly and you don't need to go and buy a journal that you're gonna write in every day because now at the same time that you're gonna go through a divorce, you're gonna go through a healing journey. No, you're not. You're gonna survive

That's it. I just want you to focus on surviving. You gotta trust. You have to trust that little bit of you that knows that you can survive this. I'm actually gonna tell you something very specific that you can do. I want you to take out a piece of paper.

And I want you to write down three things. Okay. One thing, these are gonna be to-dos. One thing is gonna be something divorce related. Maybe it's a particular email that you need to send to your attorney. Maybe it's organizing one document. Maybe it's scheduling a consultation. Then I want you to write down one thing about your life. Simple, simple task about life, like feeding yourself. It's a grocery shopping list, maybe it's paying a bill.

Or maybe it's a reminder that your kids' baseball practice got moved to next week, or God forbid you've got a baseball game you have to sit through. Jesus Christ are those painful. And then I want you to think of one thing for yourself. You're gonna write it down. Maybe you're gonna go for a walk. Maybe you're gonna sit in your car and scream the lyrics to you ought to know. my God, that was such a banger. ⁓ maybe it's calling a friend, maybe it's getting that cold brew with cold foam.

Maybe it's getting a dirty soda. Is anybody else into the dirty sodas right now? Because I'm kind of obsessed with them. Maybe it's sitting outside for 10 minutes and you're not going to look at your phone. And that's it. Three things. Not 20 things, not 30 things, not 405 things. Three things that you can do. One thing is for your divorce, one thing is for your life, and one thing is for yourself. And that's it. And then I'm giving you permission to stop.

You don't need a better plan than that. You're good. You need to take a break from carrying the weight of every single possible outcome that can happen. That's what I'm going to give for you today. There's one more thing I want to let you know about We've been putting together something that I think will also help you if you're in this place. I'm really excited about it. It's not done yet.

We're putting the finishing touches on a series of guided meditations. Yes, I said meditations, but no, they're not cheesy, they're not creepy. I think they're actually really helpful and really cool. specifically for people navigating divorce. We're talking about anxiety, uncertainty, the emotional chaos, all that stuff.

They're going to be available really soon, like in the next few days. So if you'd like to be one of the first to know when they're released, I want you to head to our website. There'll be a link in the show notes, and I want you to get on the wait list so we will let you know. Thank you for listening to this mini episode. Remember, divorce is a marathon. It is not a sprint. Not every day is gonna feel as awful as today is. You're gonna have days that feel better. There are days where Alanis felt better.

Take a sip of your dirty soda. Go rate and review our show. Go throat punch somebody. No, don't. I mean, maybe. Throat punch one person, see how it feels. It's such a good feeling. Keep going. Keep swimming. You can do this. I'm proud of you. You've got this. And we've got you.