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

Welcome to the Better Than Bitter Podcast, It's time to rebuild with purpose, passion, and intent. I woke up thinking this morning all about the fact that Thanksgiving is around the corner, we're approaching the holidays, and I reflected on that first year that

I was separated, and the holidays were approaching, and how much fear of the unknown, the feelings that were rushing through my veins, thinking about how we had split the holidays, how we were transitioning into this new life. And it really made me feel that I needed to talk to all of you today, and really talk about this idea of rebuilding and rebuilding in a way that is purposeful, that has passion at the forefront, and that we really do set intentions instead of goals.

So, as a reminder, the Better Than Bitter podcast is where we are here to tell you stories and give you real strategies to help you become better than bitter. And in that process,

Our mission is to be able to get more people towards a more amicable divorce resolution, experience emotional resilience, and really help you rebuild with clarity. And that is what we're talking about today. We are talking about rebuilding.

The holidays are approaching. Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving is a season of gratitude. It is when we do that reflection, on what it is that we want to do to make ourselves feel good every day? What is our purpose? How do we express that gratitude for ourselves, but also for the people around us? And then New Year's.

Every time I hear someone saying they want to make a New Year's resolution, I find that New Year's resolutions are so concrete that many people can't live up to those resolutions. So I want to shift the script on that and talk about intentions, setting New Year's intentions. Because what really happens with divorce is that divorce sits in the middle of these two energies. Grief.

but opportunity. And if we continue to focus on the grieving side of divorce and we don't focus on the opportunity, that's when we get the result of sitting in that place of bitterness, resentment. Maybe it's blaming somebody else for how we're feeling. So we want to open our eyes. We want to open our hearts. We want to open ourselves up to the fact that divorce

ties. So, looking at this for: 2026

going to be transforming from something that you've known into the unknown. But what if you looked at that with excitement? Even though there are so many unknowns and you might also be carrying some level of fear and anxiety, that fear and anxiety can be put into a place of, okay, well, you know what, maybe that fear and anxiety of the unknown could be exciting.

So let us reposition that. Let's be thinking about New Year's as a time to set those intentions. Let's think about Thanksgiving as a time to set those gratitudes, to create purpose, and to really reflect on what gives us passion in this new life that we have ahead of us. So I do know that these holidays that we are approaching,

especially during the time of divorce, and beyond divorce, can begin to feel very heavy. There's so much emotional complexity that goes along with this. Maybe it's loneliness. Maybe you don't have your kids, or maybe you're splitting time, and this is going to be new for you. You're going to be missing old traditions and having to establish new ones.

You might have some financial strain. And so you might be triggered by the fact that these holidays are approaching and approaching fast. So even if this season feels very tender to you and triggering, I just want you to know that you're not alone and you are not broken. And I'm gonna tell you a personal story.

So my first Thanksgiving that my ex and I split time with the kids. Now, we have a unique situation. We have a very amicable divorce and have decided that we are going to share Thanksgiving and share Christmas Eve and Christmas Day together as a family. So we continue to do that as our new tradition.

So the first Thanksgiving, I did not have my kids on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. And I had a lot of unknowns. I was feeling very lonely. But instead of wallowing in that instead I decided to engage in something that I was passionate about. So one of the things that I'm very passionate about is health and wellness. I use meditation throughout my entire divorce process. I use things like yoga. I walked in the woods.

I took long trail runs with my dogs. I did a lot of self-discovery during that time period. And I did spend time with myself and properly grieved. So what I decided to do is I signed up for a weekend at the Kripalu retreats, which is in Western Mass. It was an old ashram that has now become more of a yoga meditation retreat center. And I signed up for a three-day class.

on manifestation. I arrived not knowing anybody. I had rented my own space in my own room. They have a lot of traditions there, like silent breakfasts. So you go and you eat in silence with everybody else who is there. And then you engage in whether you're just there for a retreat to take advantage of the yoga and the outdoor experiences and the meditation, or if you've signed up for some sort of class.

Well, I arrived in this classroom not knowing anybody, and immediately I looked around and we all happened to be women. And as I began to engage and start to introduce myself, I realized that everybody in that circle was also divorced and did not have their kids for that particular weekend. So I immediately gained a community of people.

that I did not know. And I can't tell you what that experience meant to me. I engaged in something I was passionate about. I connected and built relationships with other individuals who were going through something similar. So I immediately didn't feel alone and recognized that I wasn't broken and that I was just.

part of a new community. And although it wasn't the community that I was thinking that I was going to be a part of for the rest of my life, it was a wonderful, warm, and welcoming community. So if I have any advice for you in these times of feeling heavy over the holidays, try to find a way that you can engage and do something you're passionate about.

Find other individuals who might be sharing in some of the same struggles that you might be having at this time, because it is an opportunity to build a new community. So again, this season can also be just transformational for you. It forces you to create a pause in your life where you can actually look at what is possible.

Take this time to give gratitude for the good in your life. Try to find purpose. What's important to you? And create a new life for yourself with intention. So let's talk a little bit deeper about purpose, your why, after divorce. So I was recently at a celebration.

of life. And as I was sitting in that celebration of life and people were standing up and talking about this individual and talking about the amazing things that he was able to give to so many people in his life. And it wasn't necessarily what he contributed financially or how many houses he had, or the big accomplishments that he had had, but it was the relationships that he had built throughout his years. And so when I think about purpose, when I think about the why after divorce for myself, I think about what is this next version of me, and what is this next version of me going to be anchored in?

What is my value? What is my superpower, my purpose that I wanna give to the world? So I want you all to be thinking about this. So, examples of a kind of purpose. You wanna bring calmness to the world, to your children, to your family, to your coworkers. Maybe it's about protecting financial stability. Maybe your purpose.

is to draw in on something that feels good to you, purposeful to you. Maybe your purpose is rebuilding self-trust, beginning to build purpose, and trusting yourself, trusting your gut. A lot of times in divorce, we begin to mistrust our ability to read other people. So...

We don't believe that we're making the right decisions as it relates to future partnerships. So you need to be thinking and finding purpose, and trusting yourself. So, building yourself back up so you can recognize who you authentically are, where you can then begin to rebuild your sense of trust. Maybe your sense of purpose is your own mental health, your own

emotional well-being. Your purpose is to be able to establish that for yourself and share that with your children and share that importance with others. Your purpose statement is going to be unique to you. So my purpose statement is about my superpower, which I really believe is empowerment and empowering other people.

whether it is through divorce, whether it is through life, whether it is through career, or whether it is into health and wellness. I'm also a fitness coach. I love empowering people. On my down days, I love to help young adults who are graduating from college, really helping and guiding them to figure out what their purpose is.

what they want to share with the world, where they believe they feel they would be most fit in terms of making an impact, and then helping them translate that into what the career options are for them. So this is really important. Find your purpose. Find your purpose post-divorce. What do you want your legacy to be? If you were to die tomorrow, what do you believe you want people to say about you?

Live your life according to that purpose every day. So purpose becomes your compass that steers you out of this fog. So let's talk about pillar number two, which is passion, reawakening parts of you that got lost. One of the things that I do in my one-to-one coaching sessions is that we do a rediscovering our authentic self exercise.

We write down everything that we loved about ourselves before we got married. that we believe we lost once we got married,

We evolved, and there's going to be some incredible things that you loved about yourself in your world of being married and being a parent if you had children. You then highlight all the great things, and then you build what I call a self-commitment statement. Who do you want to become in this next chapter? Because you get to reinvent yourself. So you want to reawaken those parts of you that you lost. We want to hold on to those pieces of yourself that evolved into this incredible person. And we want to marry those, too.

So again, many of you might've lost yourself in some of the roles of parenting, partnering, caretaking, and peacekeeping. You might like some of the things that you built in there, but you also might've lost some of the sense of self.

that you had before you got married, because sometimes divorce strips some of these roles and reveals this new individual, and you might've liked or disliked who this new individual had become. So I wanna ask you this, what did you silence in yourself to keep the peace in your house? Okay, because sometimes we literally shut down just to keep the peace when we're in a tense environment.

What did you use to love before your life got so heavy? What are the amazing things that you just stopped doing when your life got challenging in your relationship? What have you always wanted to try but never had the freedom or confidence to explore? Again, we're trying to rediscover our passions, trying to rediscover what used to make us tick.

What were the old hobbies? What were the things around creativity? Maybe it was travel. Maybe it was fitness. Maybe you used to work out like crazy. And now you just find yourself sitting on the couch, flipping through channels or scrolling through your phone. And you're not taking the opportunity to get moving and get active again. Maybe you used to be somebody who was super social.

And you had lots of friends, and you had friends that you liked to do things with. Maybe those were the hobbies that you lost. What were the routines that you used to have that you no longer have? So finding that passion project, finding dreams that you might have shelved, reestablishing either old hobbies or new ones. Maybe you want to go hit that pickleball craze.

Maybe you want to start a walking group with your friends. Maybe you want to start going to some meetups that are doing wine tasting or painting, or hiking. There are all these different things that you just have yet to rediscover about yourself. It's about rediscovering your body, creating confidence. bringing back some of that sexuality that you lost.

Maybe you just stopped feeling sexy. desirable. So what is it going to take to bring back that passion? Talk to so many people who are post-divorce, who are having the best sex of their lives because what had been the passion piece of their sex life had died over time because they lost that connection with their spouse.

But it doesn't mean that you're gonna lose that forever. You can reestablish that. You can bring back your sexy. You can find ways to bring back that self-confidence. And again, it's bringing back that passion. When you're passionate about things, you become more passionate about yourself. You begin to feel better about yourself. So that is what we wanna reestablish.

Passion is the spark, the thing that brings you back to life. So the last pillar is intent, the energy you choose to lead with. So intent versus goals, they are very different. A goal is a destination. Again, it's that resolution I was talking about. But intent is how you move towards it.

So divorce often puts you in a survival mode, but intent pulls you out of survival and moves you towards thriving versus surviving. The intentions are what we establish to create that roadmap for how we're going to move ourselves forward. So we think about the holidays.

Let's start with Thanksgiving. How do you want to show up at Thanksgiving dinner? How do you want to show up for yourself? How do you want to show up for your kids? How do you want to show up for your extended family? That is the intention. You're talking about yourself.

rgy do you want to bring into: 2026

lens through which you enter: 2026

If you're acting, reacting in behaviors that are being driven by feelings of bitterness, resentment, and anger, you are not going to get the results that you're looking for. And so we work a lot at being better than bitter on our thoughts. We begin to really establish thoughts about our life circumstances, and we decide on how we want to re-script.

you are gonna be setting for: 2026

Make sure you recognize and set intentions around responding and not reacting, making space, taking pause, making sure that you're accessing that prefrontal cortex before you make decisions, that you're not sitting in the fight, flight, or freeze.

So let your intent lead your actions, especially when your emotions are high.

So how do we bring this all together? We bring this together in a three-step rebuilding framework. Number one, you start with purpose. Identify your core values, identify your needs.

Purpose becomes the compass that is steering us out of the fog. The second piece of our three-step rebuilding framework is igniting the passion, reintroducing joy, reintroducing creativity, reintroducing self-expression.

Rebuild your identity from the inside out.

Passion is the spark that brings you back to life. So the third piece is to move with intent. Be deliberate about your decisions. Act with alignment with what you want in your life, making sure that your thoughts are creating those feelings that make you act, react, and behave in ways that are going to bring you the outcome that you so desire.

make sure

that you avoid recreating past patterns. Let your intent lead your actions, especially when your emotions are running high. So here are a few different guided reflection exercises that you can do.

These specific exercises are going to be tied to rebuilding with purpose.

and passion and intent. Some of the things you can work on today are one, gratitude, a thanksgiving energy that you can put on paper today. What is the one thing that divorce has taught you that you are grateful for, even if it's painful? The second is our purpose.

hat's going to guide you into: 2026

I'm here to give you reassurance, and I want to normalize this for you, that you do not need to know your whole path moving forward. You just need to take the next step. One foot in front of the other. I believe there is an amazing Christmas special that talks about one foot in front of the other.

So this season is not going to define you. It will refine you. I appreciate you taking the time to join Better Than Bitter. Please make sure you subscribe to our channel. It helps us get more presence on all of the different podcast players.

You can check us out at betterthanbitter.coach. We also have an incredible YouTube channel that has great webinars and videos for you to watch for free. And we hope to see you in our support group program. We have a free support group trial that we're offering right now for a limited time. So if you are interested, go to betterthanbitter.coach and register for our free support group trial.

We also provide one-to-one free consults, so you can find all of that at betterthanbitter.coach. There is nothing better than working with a divorce coach. If you are hoping for a more amicable divorce resolution, I'm telling you, this is what is going to save you money. I get you organized. Our support groups are there to celebrate your wins, to help you move through challenges, and there is no better way

to make sure that you and your children do not suffer from long-lasting trauma. There is no reason why, together, we cannot change the divorce dialogue. More people need to have more amicable divorce resolutions. So signing off, this is Tania. Happy holidays.

Tania Leichliter (: 25:09

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.