The Divorce Chapter

EP81 The Liz Clark Chapter: The Art of Healing your Heart Too

• Sarah Elizabeth • Episode 81

Share episode

Send us a text

In this powerful episode, I chat with Liz Clark, a divorce coach and founder of Heal Your Heart Too, about her intense healing journey post-divorce. Liz opens up about her toxic 18-year marriage, the impact of religion on her relationship, as well as how divorce became the catalyst for her personal growth. 

She shares how grief, trauma, and self-doubt shaped her experience….. and how she transformed pain into empowerment. Through self-love, therapy, boundaries, and creative healing like art and music, Liz has built a new, fulfilling life.

This episode is a must-listen for anyone navigating post-divorce healing, struggling with self-worth, or looking for inspiration to rebuild a life they love.


Key Topics Discussed:

✔️ Liz’s journey through an 18-year toxic marriage and painful divorce.
✔️ The impact of religion, grief, trauma, and feeling unseen in a relationship.
✔️ Breaking free from conditional love and rediscovering self-worth.
✔️ The importance of boundaries and emotional healing.
✔️ Art, music and creative expression as tools for healing.
✔️ The power of self-love and trusting yourself through divorce.
✔️ Forgiveness, closure, and learning to let go for inner peace.


Powerful Quotes from Liz:

💬 "I completely changed myself to make this person love me… and it still wasn’t enough."
💬 "Divorce isn’t the end. It’s the beginning of something better."
💬 "Boundaries upset the people who can no longer control you….but they’re necessary."


Liz’s Book Recommendation:

📚 Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? Dr Julie Smith

Connect with Liz:

🌎 Website: healyourhearttoo.com
 📸 Instagram: @heal.your.heart.2
 🎤 Podcast: The Heart Healer (Podbean)

Also, Liz has WRITTEN a book to help children after divorce: Check it out here ⬇️

Two Homes of Love by Miffy Lizanne


I hope you enjoy the episode with Liz,

Sending so much love,

Sarah x

🌸


🎁 P.S. Want to win a £25 Amazon voucher? Leave a review for the episode, email a screenshot to sarah@thedivorcebookclub.com and you’ll be entered into our March prize draw! Don’t forget to tell me which freebies you’d like too 💖


Want More? Join The Divorce Book Club!

📚 This March, we’re reading Runaway Husbands by Vikki Stark… This book unpacks the patterns and stages of what’s termed "Wife Abandonment Syndrome."

Runaway Husbands: The Abandoned Wife's Guide to Recovery and Renewal: Amazon.co.uk

Whether you've personally encountered a runaway

THE DIVORCE BOOK CLUB
 
https://patreon.com/thedivorcebookclub

FREE Guide to the 10 MUST read divorce books after divorce

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

INSTAGRAM

https://www.instagram.com/thedivorcechapter

Hello and welcome to the divorce chapter podcast, where we turn the unexpected divorce plot twist in our life stories into a much happier ever after. And today, we have a wonderful guest with us who's going to share her own life story and her own divorce story and how she's turned her divorce shitshow into her own glow up. So welcome to Liz,

hello, hello,

welcome, welcome, welcome. Really pleased to have you on. Really pleased to have you on. So happy. Tell us a bit about yourself, Liz, and who you are, your divorce story, because that's why we're here. So tell us a bit about yourself.

 Okay, so I overcame a pretty dramatic divorce in the last two years. I filed for divorce in May 2022 it was an 18 year divorce, and it was pretty toxic, and I, you know, completely changed myself to make this person love me. And there was lots of hidden things that I never got to the bottom to, never got closureful or an apology. And you know, that's okay. I've made peace with that. And yeah, the divorce, which I thought would finish in six months, took probably a year and a half, two years, and in that time, lost both of my in laws to cancer and around 25 people in the Turkish earthquake. So it was hugely traumatic for me. I think, I think the hardest thing was not knowing how to deal with that group, because I was so estranged from him and his family. At that point, I had all of this grief. What do I do with it? Who do I share it with? I can't help anyone, and it triggered a lot of past trauma for me, which I've had to heal mostly alone, but with the help of therapy as well. And yeah, it's been a real learning and healing journey for me, and it's also been empowering, because I've learned so much about myself, you know, I've gone right back to my early years, and you know that little child that didn't get the best start, I nearly died as a baby. I had toddler neglect through not the fault my parents. I think my sister was very difficult. She had special needs, and I didn't get the care I should have got. And, yeah, I was sexually assaulted as a teenager, and you know, all of these things I kind of pushed down throughout my life, and knew that I had these sort of difficult parts of my childhood, but couldn't quite get to grips with how to make it better and how to heal. So this divorce and grief really was kind of like a catalyst for my healing journey. That

 sounds very familiar, very familiar. So you were married for 18 years. It's a long time, isn't it?

 I was married for 18 years. I've got two beautiful children out of this relationship, and I'm so grateful for them, and I, and I, you know, I have kind of looked at this marriage of I thought it would be forever. I thought I would die with you, but actually, you gave me two gorgeous children, and I'm so grateful for that absolutely, you're just not, you're not part of the next chapter. So

 things had been going downhill for a while before you divorced. Yeah.

 I mean, it was just, I think with every toxic relationship, it has good and bad times, doesn't it? And that's what keeps you stuck, but there were more bad than good, and I just kept you know I was finding myself just fading away, really. I completely changed myself for him. I think five years before the marriage did actually end, I converted fully to Islam. He was a Muslim. Wow. And I had spent years kind of dipping in and out of it and trying to sort of make it part of my life, but it was never really fully committed. And I think I felt that I wasn't really truly loved by Him, because I wasn't what he and his family wanted. And, you know, had if I did this and he would love me completely. And that's kind of the mindset I had of I'm not good enough. I can see that I'm not enough for you. I I feel it, and you've made it quite clear over the years that this is who I should be. And I just kind of just took it as I just carried on. I just kind of went through the marriage, went through my life of just not feeling enough unloved, and then I finally decided I could leave. I should leave. I'm going to try this instead to save marriage and just keep our family together. It worked for a while. We had our daughter, which was lovely, and. Yeah, but really, the love was not there between us. It wasn't there, and it didn't make you love me anymore, really. And sadly, that was a lesson for me in self worth of you know, don't change yourself for someone if, if they don't love you for who you are, then they're not the right person, absolutely. So, yeah, a

huge lesson, isn't it? It is really hard to realise that Healthy Love doesn't require you to give yourself away. It doesn't make you lose yourself. No, when it's a healthy love, and I think that's something that we're not really taught, are we? We're not taught school, and like you say, we're we're all really our seven year old self running around in adult, adult bodies. And if we have a load of trauma, yes, from that, then we're just carrying that into our adulthood, into our relationships. And absolutely, and we expect that to just happen. Nobody teaches you how to how to deal with your emotions, how to manage trauma, how to process relationships, and what Healthy Love Actually looks like, right?

 Yeah, that's right. I couldn't quite as you say, you know, we're not taught, are we? We're not taught how to love and be loved, and when there, where is there? Is that trauma? And you become a people pleaser and co dependent. It's very, very difficult, and it can lead to really devastating consequences. I just think, just health wise, you just become very unhealthy in your mind and your body, my health was just by that point, I don't know, I felt like I just my body had shut down and I didn't recognise myself. I grew up, I thought as quite a healthy person. I was always doing sports as a kid, just by everything I went through, I was still very healthy, sporty. And, yeah, by by this point, I didn't feel like a healthy adult, mentally or physically. And it was quite sad, actually, really, how, yeah, I'd let myself go. I didn't feel, you know, I just didn't love myself enough to recognise that I was not in the right relationship.

 That's the core of it. Isn't it that self love, that self value, it's that inability of someone else to see your worth doesn't change your worth. But we don't see that, and we assume it's on us, and you know for you, even to the point of feeling that you had to change your religion to air quotes be enough. Yeah,

 I know.

 What does that do to you and your identity?

 Gosh, I it was as if I just, you know, I clearly had no self identity. Did I for me to be able to do that? I just, I thought that whoever I was wasn't enough. I wasn't lovable enough, and I got, I'd got myself into a situation where I'd met someone who there was conditional love. This is you're not who I want you to be. It. You know, it's just the marriage just dragged and it was just we were just there, but not there, that makes sense, or just neither of us. We both knew we're unhappy, that neither of us doing anything about it. And you know, it took me to actually make that and to actually make a decision to change yourself in that way is takes so much courage.

 What do you think was that? Was that point? What do you think was the, the turning point that made you absolutely

like, I just was in despair. It's almost like if, if this god Allah can help me, can help our marriage. I would do it. I will. I will completely change myself. I just need, like, supernatural help right now, and and I think also the whole covering thing also stem from the I don't really like my body, so if I cover it, it doesn't matter. And I think that also came from the sexual assault side of things. I think it was that kind of like deep down, I want to feel safe. And I think if this covering myself up and being invisible is going to do that, then I'll do that. And because you didn't want anyone else looking at me, it was very possessive. And so if I cover myself up outside, and I'm, you know, at home, it's okay, then you will love me. You know, you'll love me in the way that I want you to love me, and you're going to treat me like a queen. But it didn't happen. It didn't happen as I forfeited all of this thinking I would get the love and absolute sort of you know that I wanted. And it just didn't happen. So in the end, I was kind of like, I feel actually dead inside now. I feel unloved, I feel invisible, I feel misunderstood by my friends and family. I feel so lonely. I think that was it. I thought, you know, I had this connection to God that I thought was going to solve all my problems, but actually it wasn't the God that I I needed, and I thought I tried, and I don't regret I learned so much in this aspect religion are so beautiful and make sense, but it just isn't me. It's not the authentic me. And

 also, when we look outside of ourselves to fix something, whether that's a God or whether that's someone or something. Invariably, it's not going to work, because we're not actually broken, but we just think we are, and we're looking for something else, and we ended up moulding ourselves. I've said before, I've sometimes felt in my past relationships with my ex husband, as well as subsequent shit relationships, that I was almost like a chameleon, that I was just trying to make myself into the person that I thought that they wanted, kind of lost the point that actually they clearly wanted me as me in the first place. And if that wasn't enough, once they showed me who they were, I should have just gone, oh, okay, that you're not for me. Then Thank you. Goodbye. But didn't just try to recreate myself into something. And I think you do, don't you? You look outside yourself to go someone can fix this, then great. If it means that I've got to pray, if it means I've got to do anything, I'll do this. And you're fixing something that isn't fixable, and it's really hard.

 It is really hard, especially when you're married to that person. You will try anything. And that just goes to show that the extent of my loyalty, which, looking back, is really quite sad. And now I show that loyalty to myself. I give that love and loyalty to myself because amazing. I have never had it from anyone. I still haven't had it, and I'm I haven't given up hope that I'll get it one day. But you know for now, that level of absolute ride or dieness is going going straight back to me.

 I love that. I love that. Because that's ultimately and it, you know, it's so cliched, isn't it? You've got to learn to love to yourself first. But yes, it is really the ultimate key to it, because when you can accept yourself, even if Loving yourself is a step too far, if you can accept yourself and live with yourself, then it becomes much easier to learn to be on your own and then work out who you are and what it is that you want that then sort of falls into place once you start to recognise yourself as you are and go, actually, you know what? I'm alright, what? Just

 loving all that, it's, it's like loving those light and dark parts of yourselves, isn't it? When none of us are perfect, we really not. And it, you know, when you look, when you're looking at all those dark and light sides of me. So I'm going, do you know what? Actually, even though there are those aspects of myself I don't think are wonderful, I still love them. I love who I am, and if I can love who I am, then there's got to be someone out there. They can also, you know, love you authentically for all those parts of yourself, everything you've been through, which you think you don't deserve to be loved for

 totally. And I think as well, when we go through the divorces, that it brings with it, and I think that society as well culture and potentially for the added aspect of religion, I don't know, but it feels sometimes that divorce is shameful, that it's, it's the worst thing in the world. I think

 there is such a, yeah, there is such a stigma about it, and you're right there, especially culturally, people do not get divorced in certain countries. They will stay together until they're buried together, and they'll take antidepressants to get through that marriage, and it's like you could just get a divorce. You know you could live a happy life, and you don't need to feel that shame. It's like it shouldn't be shameful.

 It shouldn't be shameful. I never grasp it. I remember when I was first doing this work. And someone wrote a comment on an Instagram post about how divorce is like the worst thing you could ever do, and what does this? And it's like, sorry, actually, like my husband hit me. He cheated on me, he financially abused me, he emotionally abused me. Like. Sorry. Well, I'm supposed to stay in that because divorce is bad. You know it? It's such a bizarre concept, like there's no other relationship where you have to stay in it for life. It's not the worst thing in the world when it's bad for you as a person, and if it's destroying you as a person. Yeah, then how can that be shameful?

 No, absolutely you know what you've been through, even if you've never got the closure apology, you still know your body knows. And I think when your body knows, and it keeps going through this without that closure, it gets sick. You start to get sick. Your mind gets sick. And I think you know full well you're in a toxic relationship. And you know it's it's so brave and courageous to finally say, This isn't working. This is actually killing me and to walk away. It's incredibly brave through that no fault divorce. I thought it was so empowering, like that. Divorce was really the key for people who didn't want to wait two years or, you know, couldn't prove that that person had cheated on them. It's a bit of a game changer. Yeah, it was a game changer. I think it can be dangerous, although, you know, people have arguments and suddenly get divorced the next morning. Yeah, there is the cooling off part, though, isn't there as well? Yeah, there is there is that? Yeah, I think generally, you know, when you've been in an unhealthy marriage for long enough and you've given it everything, like my marriage probably had 10 years more than it should have had. But, yeah, I've

 said before, when I divorced, it wasn't the no fault divorce. It was then the two years, the five years, the adultery. And at the time, it was kind of, I wanted to make sure that he was to blame, you know, and I didn't go down the adultery route. I ended up going down the unreasonable behaviour route, because I felt that that encompassed the adultery, but also then covered all the other the physical abuse, the emotional abuse, financial abuse. It covered all of it. And that was that. But actually, when it came to it, you know, it's like when you get a degree, isn't it? You get honours or whatever. You get first class, two ones, two twos, whatever no one ever knows about that you just got a degree. And it's the same with the divorce. It doesn't matter what the reason was, whether it was unreasonable behaved by him or me or anyone else. We're divorced. That's it. So I think the no fault does actually really take away a lot of that. I don't know how I'd have felt at the time, because I was, like, wanted to blame him at the time.

 Actually holding on to resentment. Do you not think about holding on to hot coals like it doesn't help totally.

Yeah, it's really hard. That's it. And I've always said that. I think that's what caused me to get Crohn's disease, that mind body connection and letting go of that anger. Yeah, yeah,

 so angry. But actually, it actually hurts you more holding on to that. So it's

 the Old Buddha quote, isn't it drinking poison and expecting the other person to die?

 Absolutely, it's forgiveness. At the I didn't understand forgiveness. I never really knew how it worked, actually, and I you can say the word and not actually feel it. Yeah, I forgive you. But do you really, like, like, do you really forgive that person? Forgive them for what they've done? Doesn't mean you're going to let them back in your life ever. But do you really forgive them?

Forgiveness is such a funny one, though, isn't it? Because it it feels as though you're almost letting them off the hook. And then it's when you go a bit deeper into it, saying, okay, so why am I saying that I'm better than him, that I can grant forgiveness, like I'm sort of some god or something, that I can grant forgiveness? It's a weird context, isn't it? Forgiveness is such a strange I like to think of it as kind of letting go. I let go of it. For me, what he did was what he did, what I choose to do. I can't control anything that happened. He's never going to apologise. I'm never going to get closure from him. I'm the only person that can give myself closure, and I choose to let go everything and focus on moving forward, rather than staying stuck back in that resentment. But it is such a strange concept, isn't it? It is, but

I think it's, doesn't it bring peace? I've never felt peace like it before, like just letting go of that resentment for the closure I never got and will probably never get. It's really like, how peaceful do I feel knowing that it doesn't matter, it doesn't. Matter if I never get that apology. It doesn't matter if I never get the explanation as to why it happened.

And that's the thing I love most about is the pace of back in that relationship versus where I am now on my own, at pace. It's like worlds apart. It's priceless. Absolutely, really is priceless. Yeah, really is. So in terms of you, obviously had got a trauma then you said about the death of your in laws, that must have been really hard when you've had a relationship with them for 18 years as well,

incredible guilt, even though obviously had nothing to do with me and I, yeah, I'd had nearly 20 years knowing them, I've definitely felt closer to them towards the end of our marriage, I would say. And I think at first, I didn't feel like they were very impressed with what Saturn brought back, yes. And I think over time, I think, you know, our dynamic change, and you know there was real love there. And we would go almost every year apart from COVID, I think so. Yeah, it was a huge shock, absolutely devastating to suddenly be on the outside and not be invited in to grieve with everybody else. I was like, literally just like, grieve on your own, get on with it. And it was, it was really, really hard

with the children, like, allowed to be part of that?

Yeah, I think so. I mean, obviously we have to say we've never had a visit from his family, and this was one of the stinging points in our relationship that I could never get over. Why can't they come and see us? Are we not good enough? Am I not good enough? This is the back to that I'm not good enough for them to come and see me and I, it always came back to my how I felt about myself, which isn't I realised now it's not. That's not why there's, there's other reasons, I'm sure, going back to the children. So they would, you know, my daughter actually only met them when the last time I saw her was when she was three, so she doesn't really remember. Wow, she's really sad. So you know, my ex would show her pictures and things. She would feel that sadness and know that her grandparents had died, but no, not really have the the memories of them. Whereas my son was much closer, and he would spend a lot of time over there, especially as a kid, he would spend summers there. Yeah. It was really hard, really, really hard.

So how did you shift from all of that format into starting to heal? Because you've done quite a lot of work, haven't you into your own healing journey?

Yeah, so I started my coaching business the actual year that I started my divorce. And I think you think, oh, yeah, this business gonna take off straight away. And because divorce is not the easiest process and or the quickest, you know, due to all the grief and the bereavements and everything else, it was a slow burner. And I, you know, I was, I learned the actual frameworks, and got to know people and everything is, but my heart wasn't in it. I just, I thought, I don't physically think I can do this and grieve all this at the same time. So it was always there in the background, and I put the odd post out there. And, you know, I was learning to heal myself. Trying to increase my faith, I dabbled with Reiki and tried to use energy healing, and I became a massage therapist, which I still do today. Yeah, I think one of the things that really came out from my healing journey is like tapping into my inner child again and just feeling that joy, that sort of curiosity of life again, and just, you know, what brings me joy after all of this absolute awful I couldn't think of the right word for it, but it just the worst time of my life where I've just felt so incredibly sad. What is going to bring me joy again? And I learned to love art again. I've always enjoyed it, like fully, like immersing myself. And I spent a year creating a lot of pieces. I learned, you know, to enjoy singing again, yeah? Just all of these things to make myself feel better. I increase my self care, my self love. I never really did that before. I was always putting myself last, yeah, just are so conscious and intentional. What is going to make me feel good, even food? What food is going to make me feel good? Everything? I never did that before. Everything was very, sort of hand to mouth getting through the day. Now I'm very, very like what I'm going to do now, is this going to make me happy? And I look at that with everything in my life, like, is this job making me happy? Is this friendship making me happy? Is this relationship making me happy? No, okay, then it has to go.

Yeah, that's such good boundaries to learn. Those be.

Yeah, boundaries, that's the key word. I didn't have any in the past, and now I've got cast iron boundaries. And yeah, I think people find that frustrating, and especially the toxic ones that can't get in.

Boundaries usually upset the people. It disrupts the people that can't control you anymore. They're the ones usually when boundaries that will piss them off the most.

It's a great skill that I've got now, brilliant.

And so all your art and music as well, it's kind of coming back to that mind body connection. It's all releasing that energy and feeding into what you're feeling and the emotions and your whole nervous system rather than just staying stuck in those thoughts. But you've just qualified as an art life coach as well, right?

That's right, yes, I did my art life accreditation that goes alongside my coaching accreditation. So just to be clear disclaimer here, I'm not an art therapist. I'm not going to be a psychotherapist. It's going to be using art therapy techniques alongside coaching. So I'm not going to advertise myself as an art therapist. That's very different. So these are techniques that I can use alongside my coaching. It's really for those people that might struggle to verbalise how they want to move forward that makes sense. You don't really know. They don't know how to draw on experiences verbally. So I think this has been helpful if you've got a creative streak, and you know, you can make some real subconscious shifts through art. And yeah, I think it will be a lovely way to help my clients, especially, you know, ones that have goals and they've got objectives, but just can't quite get it out.

It's true, isn't it, that people, lot of people, don't really know how to express how they're feeling, particularly if, as children, they've, you know, children are seen and not heard and well, they've, they've learned to repress their emotions. They don't know how to express them. So that's a really good way for some people that, like you say, might be a bit more creative, but just can't get it out. So it's a really good thing.

It's lovely. So I'm really pleased I've got that. So that's something that I can offer. I also have recently set up a podcast called the heart healer, and it's me singing bangers. Oh, wow, these women overcome divorce. So the last one I did was flowers. That was for Valentine's Day. I'm gonna, I'm gonna get quicker at this, because I've only, I'll probably do it monthly, and then I'll try and do more. But yeah, so it's just something extra to empower women. Oh, so cool. Hopefully I can get guests on there and people can join me and be really lovely. I

don't know I'd come on your podcast. I cannot sing.

No one would need and then I could put that as well.

I love that. So you're set up as a divorce coach, essentially, right? So your business is heal your heart.

The Instagram is healed. Dot your heart too. And yeah, you will find me on Facebook under my name and the heart healer. So as a divorce coach for empowering women.

Love it. So what Liz would be if someone was listening who's just starting their divorce journey? Should we call it their journey to healing? What would be your one key bit of advice that you would give them.

Trust yourself, trust yourself and love yourself absolutely. You just fully trust yourself. Know that you're going to be okay. However it ended. Whoever ended it, you are going to be okay. It's just the beginning. It's really not the end. And I want to, you know, really emphasise that point. People think it's at the end, like my life is ending this love, like if he left you and you're absolutely devastated, please know that there is better for you, especially you know you don't want to be with someone that didn't see your worth exactly that you know. Just know that it's just the beginning. You're gonna have such a wonderful life, and you've just got to keep that picture that in mind. It will everything will be okay, absolutely,

start the next chapter, right? Yes, right, exactly that. Well, I love that saying about chapter and books. Obviously, I run the divorce Book Club, which is a monthly membership for divorce relationship self development books. Is there a personal development book that you for edge that you would love to add to my to be read list, because it's very long. I

the book I've been reading, and I still haven't finished it yet, but I do love it. Is, why has nobody told me this before? By Dr Julie Smith,

love that. That's a really. A book. I've read that book because it's really it is wise. Nobody told me this, that we don't learn this. It's exactly that, and it's all how our mind works and how our feelings work. And it's such a good book for that. She's just written a new one called open when, and it's got a number of different scenarios in it, so like if someone's died, or if a friendship has ended, or a relationship's ended, or whatever, all these different sort of themes of life that you might go through, and each chapter is dedicated to that. And she writes sort of a letter at the start, and then talks about it. It's really nice. But she's, she's, she's a, she's a great lady, yeah, yeah. So, Dr Judy Smith, so that that will, that will go on the list as well. So I will leave all your social media contacts and contact details in the show notes for everyone. But it's heal your heart. So

heal your heart too, is my website. So heal your heart two and.com and then heal dot your heart number two. Is my Instagram

amazing. Thank you so much, Liz for coming on.

Oh, it's been a pleasure. Thanks for having me,

and I will be back in everyone's beautiful earbuds again next 


People on this episode

Head Shot

Sarah Elizabeth

Host