EP71 F*** the Script: How to Create a Life That Feels Like YOU After Divorce

Divorce is tough… there’s no sugar-coating it. 

But here’s the truth no one tells you: it’s also a chance to start over, to wipe the slate clean, and to create a life that feels unapologetically YOU.

This week on The Divorce Chapter podcast, we’re diving into exactly that: how to create your next chapter after divorce….. a chapter filled with joy, purpose, and a vision that lights you up inside.

I know how hard it can be to figure out what you want when life feels like it’s been turned upside down. That’s why I’m sharing practical tools to help you dream big and start turning those dreams into reality.

✨ Here’s a sneak peek of what’s inside:

• How to use the “Perfect Day” exercise to map out your dream life.
• Why jealousy might actually be your best compass for discovering what you really want.
• How to stop giving a flying f*** about what other people think…. this is YOUR story, not theirs.
• The tools and tricks that helped me go from survival mode to living a life that feels right for ME.

Remember, you hold the pen in your hand. You get to write this next chapter exactly the way you want. And trust me, it’s going to be amazing.

Sending you so much love and big dreams,

Sarah x

🌸

Wheel of Life template can be found here:

THE DIVORCE CHAPTER Wheel of Life.png

The questions used in the episode to journal on: 

1. How would your best friend describe you?
2. Finish this sentence - I am happiest when…
3. What have you achieved that you are proud of?
4. What is unique about your personality?
5. When do you feel most confident?
6. What is your favourite thing to do to treat yourself?
7. What parts of your life are you happy with?
8. What traits do you admire in someone?
9. If you were going to go back to school, what would you study?
10. If you were in a library…. You remember those old school places you got proper books  - what section would you find yourself in?
11. Who are you most inspired by (that you personally know or figures from history)? What about them inspires you?
12. What virtues would you most want to increase in yourself? Why those ones?
13. What do you find the most beauty in? 
14. What are you most moved by?
15. What would you spend your time working on if you could succeed but no one would ever know that you did it?

And finally, don’t forget to 54321 come and join the Divorce Book Club for January where we are doing The 5 Second Rule by Mel Robbins, an inspirational life changing book.

AND using the code JANUARYSALE you get 50% off the first month…. So basically a fiver to change your life 🤷🏽‍♀️

⬇️

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https://thedivorcebookclub.com/free-resources/

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Chapters

• 0:00 When Someone has Dropped your Snow Globe
• 3:22 Half my Story went in the Fire
• 6:46 Small Steps into the New World
• 10:31 What Makes You Well Jel?
• 12:50 Your Dream Day (Tik Tok or not)
• 17:11 Wheel of Life or Chocolate Cake
• 19:53 From the Reverse Bucket List to the Regret Test
• 21:25 Letter from your Future Self
• 24:01 Journal Prompts
• 26:00 54321 to Dreaming Big

Transcript

00:00

Hello and welcome, welcome. Welcome to the divorce chapter Podcast. I'm Sarah Elizabeth, your guide to the wild, sometimes messy, but ultimately empowering, ride of life after divorce, your ride or die, if you will. And first up here is to the possibilities of a new year. Now, you may well be in the depths of the divorce shitshow right now and struggling to see a way forward. I hear you. I see you. If you listen to last week's episode, you will know that Twixtmas was the time of year that my marriage fell apart in catastrophic fashion. And if in january 2013 anyone would have been all like, Happy New Year to me, I'd have been like, fuck off. I could not see ahead to the next minute at that stage, let alone hour, day, week, month. Yeah, I get it. But if that is you, I promise you there is really so much possibility ahead, even if you can't quite see it yet. I promise you there is, and it's why this week, I wanted to give you a little bit of help with this. And also, for those of you further forward in the divorce shitshow, because actually, this part of life after divorce can be a little bit magical. This is about creating a vision for your next chapter. Because let's face it, after divorce, life can feel a bit like someone's dropped your snow globe, you know, and now you're left standing there with glitter in your hair and no idea what on earth to do with the shattered, bloody pieces. But the good news is that divorce isn't just an ending, it's an opportunity to start over, to create a life that's actually truer, happier, and why more aligned to you who you are. And so today we're going to start to map that out a bit together. So grab a cup of tea or maybe a cheeky glass of wine if you're not doing dry January. And let's get started.

02:20

But first things first, let's just take a moment to acknowledge the reality, which is that starting over is absolutely terrifying. When I left my marriage, it felt like someone had taken the story of my life, ripped it in half, ripped it into shreds, and tossed the second half into the fire. I actually often describe that time of my life as like an earthquake, because we'd built up this whole mini world around us, everything we were, everything we had, was our world, and suddenly that world was picked up and shaken to smithereens until every fucking single bit of it had crumbled in a pile of fucking desecrated Earth. I was metaphorically and literally curled in a ball on the floor, not quite knowing if I'd survive, if I was gonna make it through. And when I slowly started to find my feet and try and stand up again, there was another tremor, another aftershock, you know, just to make sure, for the avoidance of doubt, that my whole world was no longer standing. There was fuck all left. Everywhere I looked, it was just bleak and dark, just this empty, blank space that was all that was left of the old world. And for 23 years, I thought I knew how my story was going to go. I had the whole thing plotted out, holidays, grandkids, retirement, the works, and then poof gone, just like that, poof just like that gone, and I won't lie to you, that blank page of starting a new chapter, a new story, felt like the scariest thing in the fucking world, living in this new, destroyed world all by myself. But there was a tiny bit of me that did realise I now had a blank landscape to rebuild this world exactly as I goddamn liked, yes, it is scary, but that blank page is also full of possibility. It is the chance to write the story you want to live without compromise, without settling, and without anyone, anyone telling you what it should air quotes should look like. So the question is, what do you want to write? On your blank page. Let's talk vision, because here's where it does get ever so slightly tricky, because after divorce, most of us are so busy just surviving that we can't even imagine thriving, and that's normal. You're dealing with legal shit, co parenting shit, and let's be honest, probably eating, you know, half a tub of Ben and Jerry's in your pjs at least twice a week. We've all been there, but without a vision for your future, it's really easy to get stuck in the shit show, stuck in the dark place, stuck in the fear. You wake up one day and realise you've just been drifting along. You're reacting to life instead of creating it.

05:45

So how do we do that? How do we create a vision when our minds feel like a fucking foggy mirror? It's about starting small and starting to think about how you want to feel. That's the first step, because most of us, especially when we're feeling so shit, so despairingly low, we do know enough to know that we don't want to feel like that. We know that we know what we don't want, right? So instead, we need to start to think about flipping that into what we do want. How would you like to feel? Do you want to feel peaceful, calm, independent? Do you want to feel abundant, adventurous, excited, happy? Your Vision doesn't have to be crystal clear right now. It just needs to start with that feeling. The rest will come. It will work itself out. That's what the rest of the episode is for and all. You know, your vision will probably start to come to you slowly as you start to move away from the old one and let that shit go. It's stepping into a whole new world. It's building a whole new world. And so it may well feel so unknown right now, and that's okay, and it's okay too, if your new vision doesn't match the old one, a massive realisation I had was that the vision I had for my life before the divorce, it wasn't even mine. It wasn't even fucking mine. It was a we vision. I'd gone from I want this, I do that to we want this. We do that. From Me vision to we vision. It was built around my marriage the ex, what society said I should want, we should want. So when I started thinking about a new vision, I kept coming up against shit in my head, like, What would people think? Or, will my kids understand? Should I just settle for something easy? And if it kind of hit me, fuck what everyone else thinks, following on from what I said in last week's episode, this is your story. It doesn't have to look like anyone else's version of success or happiness, whatever, even the X is definitely not the X. If your vision involves something wild, I don't know, starting a business, living in a new home or new place, even, even if it's just eating freaking pizza for breakfast every day, I don't know, go for it. It doesn't need to make sense. It doesn't need to make sense to any fucker except you.

08:50

And actually, weirdly, a good way to start to figure out what it is that you truly want is to take a closer look at what makes you a teensy weensy bit jealous, or yeah, let's be real. Well, jel, you know the feeling you're scrolling through Instagram and you see someone posting their new chapter with a beachy sunset backdrop, and suddenly you're thinking, why does their life look so fucking fabulous? While, I'm just here trying to work out how to unjam the freaking washing machine. You know that little twinge of envy, even a huge twinge, is not just there to make you feel bad. In fact, jealousy is often like a signpost. It points directly to the things you secretly, or even not so secretly, wish you had in your own life. So the trick is, instead of feeling bad about being jealous or feeling embarrassed or annoyed, whatever, flip it, flip it, use it as a tool for self discovery, ask yourself, what exactly am I jealous of? Is it the lifestyle, the confidence, the freedom, or is it something else? Is this jealousy showing me something I want to explore in my own life? So for example, like, if you're jealous of someone traveling the world, it might be because adventure or freedom is something you really crave. Or if you feel a pang of envy when you see someone crushing it in their career full on boss bitch vibes, it could mean that you're ready to find something more fulfilling in your work life. Or if you see someone starting over in a new city or even country, and feel that little twist in your stomach, in your gut, maybe it's time to think about a fresh start for you too. Jealousy isn't about the other person, what they've got or look like or whatever. It's about you. It's like a mirror. It's reflecting back your deepest desires, your dreams. So instead of beating yourself up for feeling well gel, start seeing it as a clue what you envy might just be a window into what it is that you want and what's possible for your own life

11:13

and some other ways then, to work out what it is you might want in life, what your vision might be. Well, number one, there's the perfect day visualisation where you basically imagine your ideal day, your perfect day, your dream day, from start to finish, ask yourself if there were no limits, no financial stress, no external expectations. What would your perfect day look like? Start with the morning. What time do you wake up? Where are you? What do you see when you open your eyes, and move through the day? What do you do? For work, for leisure, for fun, for connection. Who do you spend your time with? What brings you joy? And as you go through the day? Do you get to the evening? How do you start to wind down? How do you feel as you go to bed? Do you do anything before you go to bed? I don't mean that. Get your mind out the gutter. Love, you know. But honestly, honestly, this shit works. It helps you clarify what you value most, whether that's freedom, stability, creativity, adventure, connection, whatever it is, it gives you specific shit to aim for. And another thing, right, you will only imagine dream what feels right for you? I asked my brother this question actually years ago about what his perfect day would look like, what his ideal day would look like, and his answer was along the lines of getting up in his existing house, having a fry up, taking the dog for a long walk, coming back, reading the paper and chilling out in front of the TV. That was basically his ideal day. Now, as much as the dog part, that would be my perfect day as well. The rest of it, we're not alike at all, though, in my bro, we do often joke. You can tell we're adopted because we're nothing alike, but he's my bro. You know, the point is, my ideal day wouldn't be the same as his. And you know, my perfect day wouldn't involve, I don't know, fishing. It wouldn't involve fishing, for sure, it wouldn't involve skiing, that fucking fear of snow. You know your ideal day, your vision overall is true to you only, and that's why it's so important to think about this after divorce, because we have been sucked into this. We vision, rather than me, vision, right? So it's bringing it back to what you want, what feels true and good for you. Apparently there's been this Tiktok trend on this whole perfect day, ideal Daydream day thing recently where people have basically put a prompt into chatgpt, giving them a few details about themselves, and asking chat GPT to describe their perfect day, and then they film themselves ugly crying on tik tok, receiving it back from chat G, p, t, and then getting all emotional. So if you want to try that, have a go at it. I'm not going to comment on filming yourself ugly crying, doing it you do you. But, you know, ask chat GPT something like, what does a day my dream life look like? Give chat GPT some information about you, like and what you want it to include, and yada, yada, yada, whatever you enjoy, even if it's fishing, how you want to feel, what you want to value. And then. You can ask it to describe your house, your career, whatever the fuck you like. And then you can tweak it as well, like say it came back that you're living in a city and you're all about the beach life. Then tell chat GPT that you know, ask it to tell you where you're waking up, the location, surroundings, what your morning routine is how you start your day, where and how you work or make money, what your financial situ is, what do you do for fun, etc, etc. You know, you get the gist. Have a play with it. 

15:32

And another way to either get the basic details to input into chat, GPT, for your perfect day in the first place, or just to start breaking down your vision full stop, is to look at the wheel of life. Now I'll put a version of this in the show notes, but honestly, there's a zillion of them online, and I did a whole episode on this around this time last year, I think. But the wheel of life is basically like a self assessment tool that breaks down your life into key areas looks like the wheel of a car or a bike broken down into segments like with the spokes of a wheel. That's why it's called wheel of life. So I also like to think of it as a nice big cake cut into eight juicy wedges. And each of the eight wedges of the cake, or segments of the wheel represent an area of your life and then rate your satisfaction within each area. So the main ones that tend to be used are health and well being, finances or money, wealth, friends and family, home and your environment. Love, romantic relationships, what have I said job and career, personal development, social life, that those kinds of things, and then you kind of break it into the areas. They're the main areas, but you can use any area you want, any area that you feel you want, to kind of know a little bit more about or work on. What does then each area look like for you now as it is now today. What does each area look like for you? Describe it and give it a marker out of 10, right? With zero being utter shit and non existent and 10 being the best goddamn scenario ever. How you feel about your segment now. So say you're looking at health and well being like, if you think of zero as whatever that looks like for you, that you can't move, I don't know. And 10 being utterly amazing, like for me, that would be being Crohn's free. That would be utterly fucking 10 out of 10. Where are you today, and what would you like each area to actually look like? What would 10 out of 10 look like for you in each area? Because it will look very different for you as it will do for me, right? And that my love is your vision. It's what you want. This wheel of life, or chocolate cake of life, gives you a real visual snapshot of where you are right now and highlights the areas where you might want to focus your visions and goals, right?

18:14

Oh, another good idea is to try the reverse bucket list. So instead of listing all the shit you want to do, you reflect on what you've already experienced or achieved in your life that's been great. So write down 10, 20 things that you've done that you're super proud of or that you're grateful for, that you enjoyed, and then have a bit of a think about them. And then ask yourself, what do those accomplishments tell you about your values? What makes you tick? What made those moments so special? And then use this to work out what you want more of in the future, right? Or a similar one to try the regret test. Imagine yourself at 80 years old, sitting in a rocking chair, walking away and asking yourself, what would I regret not doing in my life, not having, not feeling, and write down the things that come to mind, because they're often the most important dreams and goals that you need to prioritise. Actually, it gives you a bit of a big picture perspective and helps you cut through the bullshit, you know, remember, fuck what everyone else thinks.

19:46

Or another similar, yet different twist on all of this, it's just about trying to find, I'm trying to just trying to give you tools to help you try and find your vision, right? So this is another sort of similar, but slightly different. Is write yourself a future self letter. So imagine it's five or 10 years now and you're living your dream life. It could use what you've got back from chatgpt If you need but this is my more like an overall not just the perfect day. So write a letter to your current self from your future self, describing what your life is like as a general, how you got there, how it feels. And be as specific and detailed as you can, because it gets you really focused on what you really want. I tell you what I want, what I really, really want. Oh, actually, that's another one. Which Spice Girl would you be? That's another one to think about. I think I'd be probably, what would I be? I wouldn't be baby or sporty. Um, I'd probably be a cross of scary and ginger. I wouldn't be posh either. I ain't posh innit, you know. Anyway, I digress, back to future self. There are also future self meditations out there, which are wildly good and really get you thinking about this shit. And if you really want to uplevel on this one, once you've written a letter from your future self, record it, use a voice memo thingy on your phone and read that shit with all the feeling and all the excitement as if it were now, as if it's coming true, and then listen to it every night as you're going to sleep. And that works because, well, a) the brain can't actually tell the difference between real and imagined, and so it kind of reassures your brain that it's safe to have all that you want, because it feels so good now, even though it hasn't happened yet. And B It also gives your brain much needed repetition to imagine it and visualise it every night as you doze off into the theta brainwave state, which is basically the dreaming, relaxed state your mind goes into as you're falling asleep and that baby is where creativity, intuition and some deep healing happens. Hence why it's really good to visualise your future at that point, because it's like your brain is open to programming that sheen, you know,

22:23

and you couldn't mix and match any of these sort of ones that I've said about today, in really going all in on working out this next chapter, the 2025 chapter, or just journal it out right, any of this. But also, I've used these journal prompts before on a double whammy vision episode that goes even deeper into this stuff. This is all about you thinking about the you of the future, right? So I'm going to give you some questions to help you zoom in a bit on this and go even deeper. And I'm going to put these questions in the show notes for you as well, because this stuff helps us remember who the fuck we are and what we want, right? So how would your best friend describe you? Finish this sentence, I am happiest when....What have you achieved that you are proud of? What is unique about your personality. When do you feel most confident? What is your favorite thing to do to treat yourself? What parts of your life are you happy with? What traits do you admire in someone.....if you were going back to school, what would you study? If you were in a library? What section would you find yourself in? Who are you most inspired by? Whether that's someone that you know personally or someone from history or in the public eye, what about them inspires you? What virtues would you most want to increase in yourself and why? What do you find the most beauty in? What are you most moved by? What would you spend your time working on if you could succeed but no one would ever know that you did it? I love that one.

24:20

Oh, beautiful, beautiful questions. So I hope that helps a little bit in working through creating your life after the divorce show I really, really do. There honestly are so many possibilities. So just try one of them, all of them, your future self, your dream day, your dream life, the wheel of life, all of it, the regret test. Any of them, okay, they all work together. If you do more than one, you're really going to get a good, deep picture. But even just one, just trying it, just to give you a little bit of a clue about what you want, because there are honestly. So many possibilities, and go big as well. Your vision doesn't have to be realistic. Screw realistic. Dream big. Think about the craziest, most exciting version of your life. You don't need to know how you're going to get there right now, the point is to give yourself permission to want it, and once you do that, the steps will start to reveal themselves. You know, trust me, the life you're creating will all be worth it, and creating a new life after divorce isn't about erasing the past. It's about taking everything you've learned, everything you've survived, and using it to make something so fucking great extraordinary. You have a blank page in front of you, you've got the pen in your hand, and you get to decide what comes next. So here's your homework. Spend some time this week thinking about your vision, not what you think you should want, but what you actually want, and then start taking some of those small, messy, beautiful steps towards it. And I'm going to do some more on this goal setting and stuff over the coming weeks. But do try and give this a go to find out what it is that you really, really want in creating your next chapter. I promise you, it's worth it. And to give you some extra help on getting going, on bringing the vision to life, why not come and join us in January in the divorce book club, we're doing the five second rule by Mel Robbins. And Mel Robbins has actually just brought out a new book last week based on the let them theory, as in, other people might not like what you think, you say you feel, you do. Who cares? Let them. Let them think what they want, which is actually pretty relevant for this week's episode. In giving zero fucks, what other people think of your new life, let them or rather, as I say, Fuck them. Which does explain why Mel Robbins is where she is in life, and I'm not she's got a whole book on the let them theory. I just say fuck them a lot on a podcast. But anyway, Mel Robbins also wrote another couple of books, and one of them is her first book called The Five Second Rule, which is a super quick, super amazing trick to turn your life into the vision you want. So in January, in the book club, we are doing exactly that. We're doing the five second role. I'd love, love, for you to come and join us. And using the code January sale, you can also join your first month for 50% off. So it's only a fiver to change your goddamn life. Seriously, more. What could you want? There's far more deets on this in the show notes. And also, of come over and follow me on Instagram too, at the divorce chapter, because I put shit on there as well. And that's me. That's me for this week. Thank you, as always, for listening. I honestly appreciate it so so much. And if you could really help me out and rate and review the episode, I would be so grateful. It genuinely helps the whole podcast algorithm thingy, and it also helps the podcast get found by those who really could do with hearing it. So I love you sharing it as well. So if you share it, thank you. It means the world to me. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I will be back then in your beautiful earbuds next time for more on creating our beautiful next chapter. So until then, don't forget, 54321, come and join the book club. But until then, I'm sending you loads of love. Bye.