Introduction (: 00:06

Welcome to the Better Than Bitter Divorce Podcast, where we flip the script on divorce and show you how to have a more amicable divorce resolution. I'm your host, Tania Leichliter a divorce coach, a certified life coach, and the mastermind behind the Better Than Bitter five-step game plan course, where I help individuals build a pathway towards a more amicable divorce resolution.

Each week, I'll bring you uplifting stories from people who've successfully experienced amicable separations, proving that divorce doesn't have to be a battleground. Whether you're overwhelmed with grief, struggling with custody and co-parenting, or just dealing with a high-conflict individual, this podcast is here to guide you towards reclaiming your life and being what I know is possible, better than bitter.

Tania Leichliter (: 01:06

We are on day four of our five-day challenge from surviving to thriving.

I am the CEO and founder of Better Than Bitter. We are amicable divorce success coaches. And today we are going to help you build that pathway toward a more amicable resolution by embracing the new you and

making sure that you are releasing, reflecting, and reclaiming. It is so important that you do that. today we're going to release those limiting beliefs. We are going to reflect on some of the lessons we have learned in this process.

And I hope that you really do do the work. The next step is to set intentions today. Really, really important to set intentions. Today is the day we reclaim that power.

So I always start off with a quote and something to inspire you for the day. divorce can really feel like a loss of control. I know that. It's a shake-up of your identity. It's an endless loop of what-ifs.I If you are feeling that right now, say, hell yeah, But today we're going to shift that narrative. Today.

is the day that you are going to flip that script because today is not the end of your story. Divorce is not the end of your story. This is the moment where you get to take back your power. So today's work is going to help you release those limiting beliefs because if you keep getting stuck in the guilt, the self-doubt, and the fear, you're not going to be able to move your life forward. You're going to reflect on some of the lessons that we have

already done so you can move forward with clarity instead of feeling weighed down by that feeling of just regret and overwhelmed. You're going to reclaim your power today. You are going to start that by taking ownership of your future, your happiness, and your growth. So it's time to stop letting divorce define you.

and you are going to start defining who you are now and who you want to become. today's the day you're going to reclaim that power. So these are the first steps you're going to take, and they're going to be the first steps towards this future that you are going to get to design, and you are going to be able to take back control. So we're going to start with releasing the limiting beliefs.

recognizing the stories we tell ourselves, recognizing that it's our thoughts that create our feelings. So divorce can really stir up a lot of self-doubt, a lot of guilt, a lot of feelings of just feeling like you're a failure. And I get that. I do, I get that because everybody goes through those specific emotions.

but they're also rooted in past experiences and societal beliefs, which means that our society has dictated this sense of failure because we commit till death do us part. And that is the commitment that we have traditionally made in marriage. And therefore, if we don't make it till death do us part, anything short of that feels like a failure. And you're just not.

Because we evolve as people, we change as people. Life has transitions. And if you don't believe that it's okay to change and that it's okay for you to evolve and it's okay for you to not want what you wanted 20 years ago, you you just have gone through a significant amount of change. Plus there are changes that have happened in your life. There's probably been career changes.

There have been financial changes. There have probably been family dynamic changes, meaning you've probably had children or maybe not. But even if you haven't had children, you still have gone through lots of transitions in the time that you've been married. So to think that you're going to have stayed the same the entire time and that you're no different of a person today as you were 15 years ago, that's crazy to believe. And because we are living longer, right?

We are required to stay with the same individual for longer because that's what marriage constitutionally has told us. But being able to accept the fact that it's okay for you to move on and start a new chapter at this point in your life and coming to a place of acceptance to do that. Because the truth is marriage is not a failure. It's actually a step towards growth and self-discovery.

I love Tara Brach. She's an incredible mindfulness coach. And so if you haven't seen any of her work or taken any of her courses, I definitely suggest you do. But I love to quote her in this. She says, that when faced with fear, we can allow for the waves to keep crashing down on us. Or we can decide to drop into those waves. And realizing that when you do drop in,

it's time to grow. You are conquering that wave. You are courageous and dropping in. You don't let it crash on top of you, but you actually tackle it and you learn how to ride those waves. And you ride those waves to growth. You ride those waves to self-discovery. And if you can ride those waves, that is where true resilience is built.

You are going to be more resilient than you ever have been once you move through this divorce process. And again, if you can visualize this big red button, every time you do something that steps you into that place of discomfort, it's a big red button that you are pushing on. And you're just saying to yourself, all right, I'm taking this chance. It's time to grow. Push that button and take that pause that you need to move through that discomfort.

Discomfort doesn't go away by avoiding it. It just doesn't. If you avoid that emotion, if you avoid doing something, all it's going to do is fester and fester inside your body. And it's going to manifest itself in all sorts of ways. A lot of them create stress, creates illness, it creates sleepless nights, it creates all sorts of things. So in order for you really to begin to feel better, you have to move through those emotions, which means you need to feel them.

And you need to be courageous enough to move through them and to say, I know this is causing me discomfort, but I'm not going to buffer. I'm not going to go over drink over spend over eat over sex, over scroll over binge TV, watch. I'm not going to go do all those things. I'm going to sit with this feeling. I'm going to sit with this vibration. I'm going to name it, and allow for it to be there, except that it's there. And I'm going to allow for my body to process. It's kind of like hunger pains.

If you've ever gotten super, super hungry and you don't have any food available within the next 30 minutes, you're not going to feel hungry anymore. Even if you haven't fed yourself, you fed yourself, right? The hunger pains just dissipate emotions. They act in a very similar way. So if you allow for them to be there. If you allow for that heat to rise in your body or the fluttering heart or the shaking of the hands or

the feeling of the tightness of the throat, just allowing for that feeling to be there, breathe through it, okay? Breathing through it. And this is what Tara Brock really teaches, all sorts of breathing techniques. You will begin to notice that that feeling is gonna subside, but avoiding it and doing things to buffer around it will not make that feeling go away. So how do we release these limiting beliefs?

It's a real shift in perspective. So the end of a marriage is a loss. OK, I get it. It is a loss. And you are going to grieve just like death and dying. But it is also an opportunity to shed some of these old narratives that just are not serving you anymore. So let's go through some of what those common limiting beliefs are.

I want you to identify with those limiting beliefs that you are having. Number one, I wasn't enough for my partner, which means I won't be enough for anyone else. Number two, I failed as a spouse and that failure is what I believe defines me right now.

Divorce means that I'm always gonna be alone. I'm not gonna find anybody else in my life. Number four, my family, friends, or community will judge me because my marriage didn't last. I'm gonna walk around town and people are gonna look at me differently because I'm getting divorced. Number five, I just wasted all these years of my life and now I have to start over with nothing. I don't even know why I got married.

I'll never be able to trust or love again. I'm just done. There's no way I'm ever going to be able to trust anybody ever again. My children will never be okay. This divorce is going to destroy them. Happiness after divorce isn't going to be possible for me. I don't see any way that I'm going to be able to be happy. So if any of those resonated, say, yep. Comments or chat, please.

All right. So why does this all matter? Why does this all matter? Well, if you focus on what was done to keep you stuck in the past, it basically reinforces all this pain and resentment that you have. So if you focus on what was done to keep you stuck in the past, again, it's reinforcing your pain and resentment. When you blame how you feel,

based on another person's actions, something that they said, something that they did. If you blame them by saying , when they did this, it made me feel guilty, or when they did this, it made me feel shame, or when they did this, or when they said that, I felt so insecure. Well, guess what? When you start pointing fingers back at the other person and telling that they made you feel a certain way, you are giving them

all of the power over your emotions. And if anybody here wants to give that power back to their soon-to-be ex, I want you to say, yeah, I want to give that power back. Hell no, you don't. You need to take responsibility for your own emotions. If they are triggering you, if they're triggering you to feel a certain way, then that's on you.

because it's the way you're interpreting what they said or what they did that is making you feel. Okay. It's just a trigger and you're whatever you're making it mean is what's making you feel. You are welcome to check for understanding. Do some active listening when you said this, did you mean for it to mean this? You know, and then if they said, yes, that's exactly what I mean. Okay. Then it becomes a fact, not a thought, but anything shy of that.

Is not any, anything shy of that is your interpretation of it. So shifting to personal responsibility puts you back in control. Your back in owning your actions doesn't mean excusing their bad behavior. It just means that you are refusing to let it define you. Okay. Again, you're not excusing their bad behavior. You're not flipping the switch on what they did. Okay. You're flipping the switch.

on refusing to allow for it to define you for it to allow for you to point blame back at them based on how you're feeling. Okay. Take that back. Take back your power. Don't allow for them to trigger you into these emotions that you continue to feel because the only one who's suffering is you. So empowerment comes from these intentional choices, these intentional choices.

to not allow these triggers which stimulate thoughts to make you feel a certain way. Again, empowerment comes from these intentional decisions to not allow for that to happen to yourself. Again, you might have to take a massive pause. You might have to remove yourself from situations because you're getting reactive. That is okay. It just gives you some time to process. It gives you some time

to get out of that fight, flight, or freeze in your amygdala. And it gets you allowing yourself to move into the prefrontal cortex, where you're finding more logic, reason, and ration. But it takes awareness for you to do that, which means that you have to be able to calm your body. And that's where mindfulness comes into play. So when you take responsibility and let go of that blame,

you are going to be able to shape your future instead of reacting to the past.

So here is our exercise today, just for the part one. I want you to put your limiting beliefs into one column. I want you to put your challenge in the second column. And then I want you to really think about why you believe this? Like what are the thoughts in the belief system that's creating you to have this limited belief? Limited belief. I failed because my marriage ended. I'm a failure.

Challenge, challenge it. No, relationships end for many reasons that are way beyond my control. And personal evolution is not a failure. Okay. But then reflectively you're like, well, why do I believe this? Like, why do I believe that I failed because my marriage ended? Well, maybe you were taught that if you do not end up as you had said, committed to your vows till death do us part in sickness and in health.

that you have failed. So maybe it is part of your past that's creating that limited belief, but it doesn't mean that you can't flip the script on that and make sure that you're not living in the past. Cause if you live in the past, yeah, you're just going to end up in a place of suffrage. need to be thinking forward and thinking about you're the new stories you're going to tell yourself. And again, maybe it goes against maybe some of the ways you were raised and you know, you're really having to rethink.

a lot about, your commitments to spirituality and things like that. Because again, if you don't do that, you're just going to have a lot of shame and you're going to believe that you're a bad person. And that's just not the case. You're not a bad person. know, shame is about not just thinking that you did a bad thing, but shame is about not the fact that you just did a bad thing, but you're also a bad person because you did that thing. Right.

That's the difference between guilt and shame. So a lot of us do have a lot of guilt about things. We think that we did something that was bad and it's okay to feel guilty about something that you believe maybe wasn't your best choice or your best decision-making in the moment. But feeling that because you made that and that was maybe a mistake on your end that you are now a horrible person, that's a real shame and shame really does have more of a lifeline.

And it's harder to come out of that.

This is homework, recognizing and challenging your limited beliefs.

Take on the challenge as to why that limiting belief just doesn't have to be true. And then I want you to think about, where does that come from? Like, why do I have that limited belief? you could actually have more limiting beliefs that you believe have

created this place of just staying really, really stuck. Every experience, good or bad, has something to teach us, okay? Your marriage and your divorce are no exceptions. Everything in our life

You know, you can believe has a purpose, right? Something goes wrong. Something happens. You know, it puts up an alert. It creates an awareness to be like, okay, what should I have learned from that? All right. What is the lesson that that experience has created for me? What have I learned? So again, your marriage, you learned a lot and I want you to have gratitude for all the things that you learned in your marriage.

And in divorce, you're going to learn a lot and there's going to be so much discomfort. But if you also can just think of it as a learning process, you're going to learn a lot about yourself. You're going to learn a lot about how you are able to handle very uncomfortable, very difficult, challenging decision-making. And then you're going to give yourself a pat on the back because again, this is not a simple process and it's not going to feel good when you're in it.

but there's going to be so many tools in your toolbox, not only what we've done in this course, but if you take some of my other stuff in terms of ways to communicate, learning how to grieve, you're going to really come out of this with incredible skillsets. Just the mindset mastery alone is going to be so amazing for you. As you move out of this divorce into your post-divorce life, you will just feel like a different person.

And when you feel like a different person, people are going to look at you as a different person. You're just going to put out different energy into the world. So instead of dwelling on what went wrong in the marriage or what went wrong in your divorce process, I want you to shift your focus on what have I learned? What am I learning? Okay. And I want you to write those things down in your journal because I think that it's so important that we

understand what we're learning, even as simple as finances. Like if you've never managed your finances before, the next thing you know, you're having to manage your finances. It's really empowering. I wasn't the one who managed our finances in my marriage. I made money, I always worked, but I didn't ever do kind of the management of them. And now I'm doing all of it. And I have to say, I'm so proud of myself, because again, it was something I didn't really have an interest in doing.

but I also didn't believe I could do it well. And what I've realized is that, guess what? I'm perfectly capable. And to be honest, it feels great to learn that I have that capability. So again, you're gonna find different things in this process that I want you to spend time having gratitude on and giving yourself a pat on the back and focusing on what you're learning versus focusing on what went wrong. So in difficult moments, even in difficult moments,

If you have demonstrated strength, if you have demonstrated courage, if you have demonstrated resilience, reflect on that, reflect on that in your journal, because it's really powerful to have that, you know, be able to recognize all the growth that you're having during this process. So why does it matter? It matters to gain clarity on what to keep, what to let go of, and what to cultivate moving forward. So when we begin to reflect on all these things that

we are learning, or the things that we started with on day one in terms of the things that we like about ourselves before marriage, during marriage, and after marriage, we get to decide what we want to keep. We get to decide what we want to let go and we get to decide what we want to nurture, what we want to grow into, right? What we want to cultivate. might be at the beginning stages of something. You're like, you know what? I want to really get really good at that. I want to cultivate that. And whether it's a relationship,

or maybe it is a hobby, or maybe it is experiences you want to have, relationships with your children. Again, these things all can be cultivated to become different than what they are today. They get to be more spectacular than you ever possibly imagined. So it really does help you recognize your own inner strength and the wisdom that you're going to gain through adversity. And we always say that people really do grow through

of adversity. You really do figure out what you're made out of when you go through hard times.

So an exercise I want for you all to be doing today, I want you to write a letter to yourself. You're going to go home tonight. You're going to write a letter to yourself. You're going to reflect on your triumphs. You're going to talk about what it took to persevere. Reflect on your triumphs. All the things that you're good about, the little things. It doesn't have to be grandiose things.

But what did it take to persevere? want you to include in your challenges in terms of how did it test you? What did it test about you? How did you handle it? How did you wish that you had handled it better? You know, write that letter to yourself. Identify your biggest challenges in your marriage. Identify what you believe you could have handled better. These are just like honest statements again, because it takes two to tango. And sometimes we have to take.

accountability, we have to take ownership, we have to take responsibility. And I do hear many people wanting to get this feedback loop from their soon-to-be ex, you just want them to acknowledge what they did wrong. Don't go into it with this, the only person you can control is yourself. So stop focusing on them. Stop focusing on the manual by which you want them to

how you want them to behave. You have no control over them. You only can show up for yourself. You only have control over yourself, okay? And you have control over your reactions to others, but you don't have control over what you want those other people to do. Because if you constantly are focused on what you want them to do, what you want them to admit, what you want them to be able to say, all my fault, is you're gonna sit in a place of disappointment.

resentment and bitterness because they're never going to do exactly what you want to do in the way you want them to. So that's going to end up affecting you and you're the one who's going to suffer. So you got to let it go. Focus on yourself. Focus on what you can control. Take that Victor stance. There's an acronym for Victor and it's O A R consider yourself when you are Victor and you are rowing.

up that river and maybe you're rowing up that river against the current and you feel, you really, really feel the resistance coming at you, but you see your boat and it is moving forward, right? O is for ownership. A is for accountability. R is for responsibility. So that's how you remember it. If you want to become a victor, you grab that oar Ownership, accountability, and responsibility.

So why are we going to write this letter? Well, it just really does help process some of these emotions and gain some closure. We all need to gain closure, guys. We do. We do. In order for you to move forward, get this out on paper and get that closure that's needed. If there is some negativity, if there are things that you're getting out on your paper that you believe you want to let go, go let them go. Put them on pieces of paper and go burn them.

Okay, go do a burn, go outside, go into your fire pit or whatever. Take those pieces of paper or just throw them into your fireplace, tear them up, and put them into a shredder. If there are things that you are stuck on, write them down and shred them, burn them, do something, cut them all up into pieces. You know, just get rid of them forever. Okay, very visual, very tactical.

And really important that you do that. So it encourages you to take responsibility for what you can control and release what you can't. We just talked about that. Let it go. Shift your mindset from blame to empowerment. So that's what I want this letter to be all about. Shifting your mindset from blame to empowerment. Only controlling what you can control and that is you. So we're going to move into reclaiming your power. So that just means that you're going to take some ownership.

and focus on what you can control. And what you can control is your mindset. You can control your actions. You can control your emotions. And you can control the future that is within your control. You can't control everything in your future, but again, there are mindset things you can control. You can take control of your own actions. You can take control of your own emotions. It's really important.

and the victim mentality when you're pointing fingers back at blame. So once again, we have another acronym for victim mentality, and is BED. So people who are victims, think of them as people who are just laying in bed. And the acronym is BED, B for blame, E for excuses, and D for denial.

It's okay to admit it because most people at this stage of our divorce process are sitting in a victim mentality, believing that something was done to them, not for them. Pointing fingers, making excuses why they're not getting things done in denial of what the situation is, and not moving their lives forward. Again, get yourself out of bed tomorrow. All right? I want you to jump in that boat.

And I want you to grab your oars. All right. And you are going to start rowing down that river in a powerful way, pushing against that resistance and still seeing your boat move forward. So stop blaming your ex or external circumstances. That is only fueling the anger and the resentment and the bitterness. Ask yourself, am I focused on what I can change, or am I focused on what I can't?

Again, that's an important question to ask yourself. Am I really focused on what I can change? My mindset, my actions, my emotions? Or am I focused when I can't? I am hoping that my soon-to-be ex will do X, Y, and Z. I'm waiting for him or her to apologize. I'm waiting for them to take ownership of the affair that they had. Again, stop.

focusing on them and start focusing on what you can control. Again, what you can change, not what you don't have any control over.

So true transformation is going to happen when you start to begin to shift that inward. When you start taking accountability for your own healing, and that will lead to growth. Okay. And when you stop trying to change others and start directing the energy inward toward your own empowerment, it will begin to change your life. This shift from victim to Victor is so important.

not only in your divorce but in your life. You will see great things happen to you if you go through life as a victor and not as a victim. So when you reclaim that power, you are going to gain that clarity you need. You're going to have more resilience. You're going to have the ability to create that future that you want, right? Because again, you're not pointing fingers back at somebody.

telling them that they're making you feel a certain way you've gotten rid of that, right? You're not blaming anybody anymore, because that means they have control over you. They have that power. You are reclaiming that power. You're the one who's going to create that future that you deserve. So what does it mean? It means that you're going to shift that responsibility from a blame to responsibility. You're going to recognize that you have full control.

You're going to take that ownership, which acknowledges where that power is and how taking action is going to be what's going to make you move forward and grow. It's those places of action that are really going to get you the results you're looking for in your life. If you believe that your happiness is not dependent on others and that happiness is a decision and it is something that you create for yourself, that is where the power is. Okay.

Your happiness is not dependent on everything else. You have a decision to make on how you want to feel every day. Understanding that your values will be guiding those decisions.

why does this matter? Because you need to take back control over your life. You need to take back your choices and you do need to take back your identity.

You get to define who you are and who you want to become. Divorce doesn't happen to us. It happens for us and we get to define who we want to become moving forward.

So we're going to add affirmation, the empowerment statement.

The I am, I will, and I can, and I have, I am allowed to evolve. I will have the strength to create a new fulfilling future. I can start a new chapter that aligns with my authentic self, right? I have this ability to do this. I have the ability to do this.

we want to identify one area where you believe you were giving away that power and explore how reclaiming it might feel and how it would change your life. Then I want you to list out three different ways that you can take responsibility, stop making excuses, and do things that will bring you joy this week. So many times,

I know that there are so many competing things for your time right now because life is still happening the way life was. And now you have all of this other stuff that you have to get done as it relates to the divorce. You possibly have double duty with your kids, or at least there's like a real difference in your routine. I'm assuming those that are, you know, having to go to the office, you still have to go to the office.

And now all these things you have to do for divorce. But at the end of the day, you have to make time for it, right? So stop making excuses. And I want you to be able to schedule the time you need every day to get a little bit done. Like I said, baby steps. But I also want you to schedule a time for bringing joy to yourself every week. And this doesn't necessarily have to be an experience. It could be an aesthetic joy. I know that

One of my clients was a big mountain biker. And I knew that it was something that brought him joy. So I made the recommendation that he go out and buy some sort of mountain biking painting or sculpture or something that he could put at the end of his bed. When he wakes up in the morning and he opens his eyes, he would

be able to experience that aesthetic joy because what he was looking at, whether it's consciously or so consciously, is something that brings him joy. so every morning, that's how he woke up. And he gets a look at this great, you know, Iron Mountain Viking sculpture at the end of his bed. So I want you all to find your joy, again, the experience of meeting up with a friend, spending time with your children, and just cuddling in bed.

Whatever the joy is, maybe it's like a special food that you absolutely love and you're just like a party in my mouth, right? And so whatever that joy is, make sure you're making time for those little things. And then I also want you to take responsibility for those things that you're avoiding. So I want you to make sure that you write down those three things that you believe you've been avoiding, and take responsibility for that avoidance. And then I want you to then

do three things that bring you joy. Commit to one action today, okay? That reflects your reclaimed power, okay? Again, what is that one action you're gonna do today? That tomorrow, you're not gonna do the same thing. You're taking action to not do something that you did today, which shows that you're taking back your power. I mean, it could be as simple as the thought that...

You are waiting for some sort of apology, okay? Or admitting, the other person admitting they did something. You're waiting for that, right? If you just drop that, that's one thing that you can do to reclaim your power. Again, you can't change that other person. You can just change how you react to them. You can also, once again, just know that you need to be focusing on yourself and how you can better yourself and not worry so much about the other individual.

I moved through things quickly. but I do want to make sure that everybody remembers.

know, what we solve for today. Number one, the limiting beliefs that keep us stuck, keep us feeling guilty, keep us feeling a lot of self-doubt and living in fear. So the focus, of our solution today was that we can learn how to move through those fears. We can focus on getting clarity. We reclaim our power, right? By taking ownership, we become victors.

We grab those oars, push against that resistance and still see our boat move forward. We throw away that victim mentality. We stop blaming people for the way that we feel. And we start taking ownership responsibility and accountability for our own emotions. Just because someone says or does something that's triggering to you, it doesn't necessarily mean that the thoughts that are associated with that trigger have to determine how you feel.

That's your choice. Okay. That is your choice to be able to sit with that emotion based on something's triggering. You have the ability to press pause to rethink so you can refill, and refuel. Okay. Hashtag Re-Think ReFeel

Tania Leichliter (: 33:38

Thanks for tuning in to Better Than Bitter, navigating an amicable divorce. Whether you are at the beginning of your divorce journey, midway through, or even done, we want the stories from our guests to give you hope that an amicable resolution is possible. If you'd like to dive deeper into today's episode, check out our show notes for a full transcript, reflections, and links to learn more about Better Than Bitter's coaching courses,

and how to connect with our fabulous guests. If you're ready for more support, you can head over to betterthanbitter.coach. Daily, you'll find details and additional information on our five-step game plan multimedia course, our one-to-one Zoom coaching, group coaching, monthly memberships, events and retreats, and a whole lot more. Plus, we've got a ton of free resources, like our monthly newsletter,

our private Facebook group, Instagram channel, and a library of articles and free webinars to help you along the way. When you go to our website, you'll be able to schedule a free 45-minute breakthrough call. Remember, we're here to help you reach an amicable resolution. Find your courage and believe in your brighter future because you know what? It is possible.

At Better Than Bitter, we measure success by what we give and not by what we get. So let's change the divorce dialogue together. It's time to be better than bitter.