June 17, 2025 • 15 mins
What does it really take to start over after divorce, grief, or a major life upheaval?
In today's episode, Anna shares her own story of navigating a protracted divorce and rediscovering herself through healing, reinvention, and the power of intentional growth. You’ll hear real-life examples from women like Elizabeth Gilbert, Sheryl Sandberg, and Martha Stewart - each of whom turned adversity into opportunity.
Anna also offers four practical tools for anyone at a crossroads:
- Set clear goals
- Seek support
- Invest in yourself
- Practice consistent self-care
This episode is for you if you're standing at the edge of a new beginning and need both inspiration and grounded advice. Remember: you don’t just wake up and become the butterfly.
*Growth is a process*
~ Coach with Anna ~
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hi everyone.
It's Anna McBride.
Welcome back to.
She Asks Tools of PracticalHope.
This show explores topics ofgrowth, healing and recovery and
offers tips and guidelines foryour personal journey.
Today we'll be exploring thetopic of starting over, or the
(00:25):
way I see it, starting again.
Every new beginning is a chancefor us to assess everything
we've learned up to this momentso we can apply it to our next
move.
Or as one of my meditationteachers used to say, everything
has been prepped for what comesnext.
(00:46):
So growth and change.
Let me just first acknowledgethat there are a lot of
challenges and emotions, youknow, that are told through
starting over.
You know I myself went through adivorce.
It was protracted.
We separated almost seven yearsago and yet it didn't happen
(01:06):
until finally, until three yearsago.
It's a lot of time and therewere a lot of emotions, a lot of
challenges because of thecircumstances that led to the
divorce and the length of timewe were married and so much like
that.
There are other things inpeople's lives, whether they're
death or financial setbacks orcareer changes.
(01:28):
All of these have challengesintrinsic in them and emotional
aspects to them.
So I don't want to sugarcoatthat it's easy.
Growth isn't easy.
Change isn't easy, yet there isan opportunity that comes along
with it.
You know, self-discovery,resilience these are qualities
(01:48):
that we don't necessarily get topractice or experience when
things are going well.
At least in my experience.
It only happens when things arereally challenging.
Do I really expand and grow anddo I really know that I can see
my way through it?
So here's a quote you do notjust wake up and become the
(02:10):
butterfly.
Growth is a process.
So it takes a lot of strengthand courage to embark on a new
path.
Strength to break through thatcocoon.
If you're the caterpillarthat's attempting to become the
butterfly, encourage meaningreally being connected to your
heart.
To know that you're thecaterpillar that's attempting to
become the butterfly, encouragemeaning really being connected
to your heart, to know thatyou're following your path.
Because let me just be very,very clear, the path can be
(02:34):
difficult and you're going toneed strength and courage to see
your way through it.
So I want to share with you someinformation about some women
who have paved the way for us.
Someone like Elizabeth Gilbert,who wrote E Pray Love.
She left a long-term marriagein order to fulfill her
(02:57):
happiness, and it wasn't easy.
It was really messy.
She's known to have saidembrace the glorious mess that
you are, and so it's importantfor us to consider when we think
about her story is where have Itried to hide my messiness?
Instead of growing through it?
I like to say, if I'm going togo through it, I want to grow
(03:17):
through it.
Another person to remind us ofthis process is Sheryl Sandberg.
She's the COO of Meta, whichwas Facebook, and she's also the
author of Option B.
She wrote this story afterexperiencing a sudden tragic
(03:37):
loss of her husband in 2015.
And the book is about herprocess, of what she went
through, and she's a staunchadvocate for grief, awareness
and resilience, and her quotethat she's known for is option A
is not available, so let's kickthe shit out of option B.
I just love that.
(03:58):
So resilient, so strong, sopowerful.
Such a great comeback.
A very tragic time for her.
And another character andpersonality to consider is
Martha Stewart, who all of usmay know did some prison time or
some investment fraud, and yetshe was thought to have totally
(04:19):
lost her brand going into thatsituation and then was able to
come out of it stronger thanever and re-engaged, re-emerged
as a media personality,entrepreneur and regaining
public trust for being true toher personality, true to herself
, and I think that as we talkabout this information today, I
(04:42):
want you to just keep in mindthat we don't get to choose the
circumstances that we go through.
We only get to choose ourresponse to it, and these women
demonstrated great response tothose situations they were
dealing with.
Here are some statistics toconsider American women after
divorce.
Approximately 52% of divorcedwomen in the United States
(05:06):
remarry.
This is, according to theCoquette Woman, 52%.
That's only half.
Remarriage rates have declinedover recent decades, with women
remarrying at lower rates thanmen.
In fact, one of the maybeuncommonly known statistics is
that divorced men marry at arate almost half as quickly as
(05:29):
their divorcee wives, usuallywithin a few years.
Bowling Green State Universityis the one that provided the
quote that the women remarryingat lower rates than men.
And factors influencing lowerremarriage rates among women
include increased financialindependence and a desire for
personal freedom.
That's, according to the WallStreet Journal, because we grow
(05:53):
stronger in ourselves andstronger in our pocketbook.
We have better choices, wedon't have to remarry for money,
and that's such a great thingto know.
Yet there are transitions incareer, while the statistics on
women starting new jobspost-divorce is limited.
Many women pursue new careeropportunities or reenter the
(06:15):
workforce after divorce.
My experience I was workingbefore I divorced.
I just did a major pivotpost-divorce.
I decided to go a different way.
Having been a therapist foralmost two decades, I came into
(06:35):
this realm of doing morecoaching and life skill training
for women like me who needed apivot or were given
circumstances that required apivot in their life.
And I want you to know it ispossible, it is achievable.
Now, challenges faced includebalancing work and family
(06:57):
responsibilities, potential gapsin employment history and the
need for an updated skills.
This is all to say that when wereenter the workforce, we may
have some challenges being seenas being ready, as seen as being
qualified, as seen as havingthe necessary skill set,
(07:20):
training to be ready.
I want to just tell you, assomeone who has had to face all
this myself it's possible, it'sachievable.
The person who needs to knowthat is you.
You can get training andsupport to help you get further
polished or further trained ifneeded.
Yet I want you to know it ispossible.
(07:43):
Support systems such as careercounseling, maybe therapy, job
training programs can aid insuccessful transitions.
Getting back into the workingworld does require support, does
require maybe some training,depending on how you decide to
(08:03):
pivot.
Yet it is possible.
It's never too late, I promiseyou.
So here are some practical tipsthat I would recommend for you
to consider for embracing yournew beginning actionable items
for you.
First one is set clear goals.
Clarity is everything, and whenI got into this new part of my
(08:29):
life, I needed to define what Iwanted to achieve, both
personally and professionally.
When I got divorced, I foundmyself feeling very lost and
confused, and the first thing Ineeded was some recovery, and so
I got help from both atherapist as well as a recovery
(08:49):
coach to help me betterunderstand what led to the
breakdown of my marriage, thechallenges I was facing in my
life and why I was feelingunfulfilled in my career.
So through that process, I wasable to get a lot of clarity
around what I wanted to do.
Next, I knew that I wanted toget healthier in body and mind,
(09:14):
and I knew I wanted to get a newcreative aspect to my career,
and so the next thing I had todo is I had to seek support.
I mentioned my recovery and mytherapist, my recovery coach, my
therapist.
I also realized that I didn'tknow the first thing about how
to do the next things I wantedto do.
(09:35):
I wanted to start a podcast.
I wanted to have a YouTubechannel.
I wanted to be a teacher inthose formats, I wanted to be a
coach, and yet I didn't know howto begin.
I sought out coaching.
For that, I went to Fiverrcom,which is a service on the
internet, in order to help meget access to some really great
(09:57):
people in service, creativeservice that could help me
create the platforms that Iwanted to do.
I also found an ongoingspiritual coach who's been my
ongoing guide.
I have a business coach.
Obviously, I'm really intocoaching and I realized that I
needed help and I needed to getout of my own way.
This was the next thing Ineeded to do and this was an
(10:21):
investment in me, which is thethird tip I want to give you
Invest in yourself.
For me, it looked like hiringcoaches to help me move on to
the next thing.
For you, it might look liketaking a class online, watching
YouTube videos regularly,getting maybe a bit of your
(10:41):
degree together.
If you want to pursue somethingthat requires that, invest in
yourself, because every time weinvest in us, the repayment
comes back.
That's been my experience.
I also had to practice betterself-care.
That meant like I had to makesure I was reading things that
(11:04):
were feeding my spirit.
That meant that I had to get tobed early in order to wake up
as early as I do.
I had to have the discipline ofcreative work daily in the
morning, which is when I'm mystrongest minded and creative
minded.
I had to also have a regularfitness workout.
(11:24):
I had to eat better All thesethings that had somehow gotten
lost through the process ofdivorce and the aftermath of
that.
Yet now I am able to dosomething that is just for me.
I can say this so that I can beclear I am a mother.
I have three children.
They are all adults.
(11:45):
I have that luxury, so to speak, that I don't have them in my
home.
I have them living on their own, and so I can just focus on me.
Now someone else might haveyounger children.
I want you to know it's stillpossible to do these things when
you have children around you.
You're going to need toprioritize yourself.
(12:05):
So, number one set clear goals.
Be clear about what you need todo for yourself and what you
want to do in professional life.
I want you to seek support sothat you get the help that you
deserve and need to be able totake your life to the next level
and then see all of that helpthat you're getting, as well as
(12:27):
anything else that you need toemploy, as investing in yourself
.
When we invest in us, we getthat repayment back.
The universe always takes careof us when we take care of
ourselves.
And, lastly, we want to practiceself-care.
We really cannot move forwardif we're not taking care of
(12:47):
ourselves.
It really does matter what wedo from eating, sleeping,
reading, what we do daily interms of the practices that we
do for self-care, as well ascreative work matters.
So what are you doing with yourtime?
Think about it.
Self-care matters.
(13:08):
I want you to prioritize yourmental as well as your physical.
When you do that, you will havewell-being during times of
change.
All of this stuff is somethingthat we need to consider and
something that will help buildthe foundation for where you're
headed next.
(13:33):
So please know that, whereveryou are in your transition, in
your life journey at the moment,post-divorce, or whatever
circumstances that you'redealing with that have you
pivoting in your life journey atthe moment post-divorce or
whatever circumstances thatyou're dealing with that have
you pivoting in your life.
That growth, empowerment andeverything that goes along with
that is an opportunity for youto become what you're meant to
(13:57):
be.
The moment I realized thateverything was happening for me
not just to me was when I wasfree to really embrace my life
in a bigger way.
New beginnings, whilechallenging, offer opportunities
for being happier, freer, morealive.
(14:20):
Remember the quote you do notjust wake up and become the
butterfly.
Growth is a process.
I hope that you'll embrace theprocess.
So thank you for tuning intoday.
This is Anna McBride from sheAsks, the podcast that offers
practical hope.
Thank you for listening.
(14:46):
Tune in, come back, offer anyfeedback or suggestions you may
have for future podcasts.
We're here to listen.
Look forward to hearing fromyou.
Until soon, be well.
Hi everyone.
It's Anna McBride.
Welcome back to.
She Asks Tools of PracticalHope.
This show explores topics ofgrowth, healing and recovery and
offers tips and guidelines foryour personal journey.
Today we'll be exploring thetopic of starting over, or the
(00:25):
way I see it, starting again.
Every new beginning is a chancefor us to assess everything
we've learned up to this momentso we can apply it to our next
move.
Or as one of my meditationteachers used to say, everything
has been prepped for what comesnext.
(00:46):
So growth and change.
Let me just first acknowledgethat there are a lot of
challenges and emotions, youknow, that are told through
starting over.
You know I myself went through adivorce.
It was protracted.
We separated almost seven yearsago and yet it didn't happen
(01:06):
until finally, until three yearsago.
It's a lot of time and therewere a lot of emotions, a lot of
challenges because of thecircumstances that led to the
divorce and the length of timewe were married and so much like
that.
There are other things inpeople's lives, whether they're
death or financial setbacks orcareer changes.
(01:28):
All of these have challengesintrinsic in them and emotional
aspects to them.
So I don't want to sugarcoatthat it's easy.
Growth isn't easy.
Change isn't easy, yet there isan opportunity that comes along
with it.
You know, self-discovery,resilience these are qualities
(01:48):
that we don't necessarily get topractice or experience when
things are going well.
At least in my experience.
It only happens when things arereally challenging.
Do I really expand and grow anddo I really know that I can see
my way through it?
So here's a quote you do notjust wake up and become the
(02:10):
butterfly.
Growth is a process.
So it takes a lot of strengthand courage to embark on a new
path.
Strength to break through thatcocoon.
If you're the caterpillarthat's attempting to become the
butterfly, encourage meaningreally being connected to your
heart.
To know that you're thecaterpillar that's attempting to
become the butterfly, encouragemeaning really being connected
to your heart, to know thatyou're following your path.
Because let me just be very,very clear, the path can be
(02:34):
difficult and you're going toneed strength and courage to see
your way through it.
So I want to share with you someinformation about some women
who have paved the way for us.
Someone like Elizabeth Gilbert,who wrote E Pray Love.
She left a long-term marriagein order to fulfill her
(02:57):
happiness, and it wasn't easy.
It was really messy.
She's known to have saidembrace the glorious mess that
you are, and so it's importantfor us to consider when we think
about her story is where have Itried to hide my messiness?
Instead of growing through it?
I like to say, if I'm going togo through it, I want to grow
(03:17):
through it.
Another person to remind us ofthis process is Sheryl Sandberg.
She's the COO of Meta, whichwas Facebook, and she's also the
author of Option B.
She wrote this story afterexperiencing a sudden tragic
(03:37):
loss of her husband in 2015.
And the book is about herprocess, of what she went
through, and she's a staunchadvocate for grief, awareness
and resilience, and her quotethat she's known for is option A
is not available, so let's kickthe shit out of option B.
I just love that.
(03:58):
So resilient, so strong, sopowerful.
Such a great comeback.
A very tragic time for her.
And another character andpersonality to consider is
Martha Stewart, who all of usmay know did some prison time or
some investment fraud, and yetshe was thought to have totally
(04:19):
lost her brand going into thatsituation and then was able to
come out of it stronger thanever and re-engaged, re-emerged
as a media personality,entrepreneur and regaining
public trust for being true toher personality, true to herself
, and I think that as we talkabout this information today, I
(04:42):
want you to just keep in mindthat we don't get to choose the
circumstances that we go through.
We only get to choose ourresponse to it, and these women
demonstrated great response tothose situations they were
dealing with.
Here are some statistics toconsider American women after
divorce.
Approximately 52% of divorcedwomen in the United States
(05:06):
remarry.
This is, according to theCoquette Woman, 52%.
That's only half.
Remarriage rates have declinedover recent decades, with women
remarrying at lower rates thanmen.
In fact, one of the maybeuncommonly known statistics is
that divorced men marry at arate almost half as quickly as
(05:29):
their divorcee wives, usuallywithin a few years.
Bowling Green State Universityis the one that provided the
quote that the women remarryingat lower rates than men.
And factors influencing lowerremarriage rates among women
include increased financialindependence and a desire for
personal freedom.
That's, according to the WallStreet Journal, because we grow
(05:53):
stronger in ourselves andstronger in our pocketbook.
We have better choices, wedon't have to remarry for money,
and that's such a great thingto know.
Yet there are transitions incareer, while the statistics on
women starting new jobspost-divorce is limited.
Many women pursue new careeropportunities or reenter the
(06:15):
workforce after divorce.
My experience I was workingbefore I divorced.
I just did a major pivotpost-divorce.
I decided to go a different way.
Having been a therapist foralmost two decades, I came into
(06:35):
this realm of doing morecoaching and life skill training
for women like me who needed apivot or were given
circumstances that required apivot in their life.
And I want you to know it ispossible, it is achievable.
Now, challenges faced includebalancing work and family
(06:57):
responsibilities, potential gapsin employment history and the
need for an updated skills.
This is all to say that when wereenter the workforce, we may
have some challenges being seenas being ready, as seen as being
qualified, as seen as havingthe necessary skill set,
(07:20):
training to be ready.
I want to just tell you, assomeone who has had to face all
this myself it's possible, it'sachievable.
The person who needs to knowthat is you.
You can get training andsupport to help you get further
polished or further trained ifneeded.
Yet I want you to know it ispossible.
(07:43):
Support systems such as careercounseling, maybe therapy, job
training programs can aid insuccessful transitions.
Getting back into the workingworld does require support, does
require maybe some training,depending on how you decide to
(08:03):
pivot.
Yet it is possible.
It's never too late, I promiseyou.
So here are some practical tipsthat I would recommend for you
to consider for embracing yournew beginning actionable items
for you.
First one is set clear goals.
Clarity is everything, and whenI got into this new part of my
(08:29):
life, I needed to define what Iwanted to achieve, both
personally and professionally.
When I got divorced, I foundmyself feeling very lost and
confused, and the first thing Ineeded was some recovery, and so
I got help from both atherapist as well as a recovery
(08:49):
coach to help me betterunderstand what led to the
breakdown of my marriage, thechallenges I was facing in my
life and why I was feelingunfulfilled in my career.
So through that process, I wasable to get a lot of clarity
around what I wanted to do.
Next, I knew that I wanted toget healthier in body and mind,
(09:14):
and I knew I wanted to get a newcreative aspect to my career,
and so the next thing I had todo is I had to seek support.
I mentioned my recovery and mytherapist, my recovery coach, my
therapist.
I also realized that I didn'tknow the first thing about how
to do the next things I wantedto do.
(09:35):
I wanted to start a podcast.
I wanted to have a YouTubechannel.
I wanted to be a teacher inthose formats, I wanted to be a
coach, and yet I didn't know howto begin.
I sought out coaching.
For that, I went to Fiverrcom,which is a service on the
internet, in order to help meget access to some really great
(09:57):
people in service, creativeservice that could help me
create the platforms that Iwanted to do.
I also found an ongoingspiritual coach who's been my
ongoing guide.
I have a business coach.
Obviously, I'm really intocoaching and I realized that I
needed help and I needed to getout of my own way.
This was the next thing Ineeded to do and this was an
(10:21):
investment in me, which is thethird tip I want to give you
Invest in yourself.
For me, it looked like hiringcoaches to help me move on to
the next thing.
For you, it might look liketaking a class online, watching
YouTube videos regularly,getting maybe a bit of your
(10:41):
degree together.
If you want to pursue somethingthat requires that, invest in
yourself, because every time weinvest in us, the repayment
comes back.
That's been my experience.
I also had to practice betterself-care.
That meant like I had to makesure I was reading things that
(11:04):
were feeding my spirit.
That meant that I had to get tobed early in order to wake up
as early as I do.
I had to have the discipline ofcreative work daily in the
morning, which is when I'm mystrongest minded and creative
minded.
I had to also have a regularfitness workout.
(11:24):
I had to eat better All thesethings that had somehow gotten
lost through the process ofdivorce and the aftermath of
that.
Yet now I am able to dosomething that is just for me.
I can say this so that I can beclear I am a mother.
I have three children.
They are all adults.
(11:45):
I have that luxury, so to speak, that I don't have them in my
home.
I have them living on their own, and so I can just focus on me.
Now someone else might haveyounger children.
I want you to know it's stillpossible to do these things when
you have children around you.
You're going to need toprioritize yourself.
(12:05):
So, number one set clear goals.
Be clear about what you need todo for yourself and what you
want to do in professional life.
I want you to seek support sothat you get the help that you
deserve and need to be able totake your life to the next level
and then see all of that helpthat you're getting, as well as
(12:27):
anything else that you need toemploy, as investing in yourself
.
When we invest in us, we getthat repayment back.
The universe always takes careof us when we take care of
ourselves.
And, lastly, we want to practiceself-care.
We really cannot move forwardif we're not taking care of
(12:47):
ourselves.
It really does matter what wedo from eating, sleeping,
reading, what we do daily interms of the practices that we
do for self-care, as well ascreative work matters.
So what are you doing with yourtime?
Think about it.
Self-care matters.
(13:08):
I want you to prioritize yourmental as well as your physical.
When you do that, you will havewell-being during times of
change.
All of this stuff is somethingthat we need to consider and
something that will help buildthe foundation for where you're
headed next.
(13:33):
So please know that, whereveryou are in your transition, in
your life journey at the moment,post-divorce, or whatever
circumstances that you'redealing with that have you
pivoting in your life journey atthe moment post-divorce or
whatever circumstances thatyou're dealing with that have
you pivoting in your life.
That growth, empowerment andeverything that goes along with
that is an opportunity for youto become what you're meant to
(13:57):
be.
The moment I realized thateverything was happening for me
not just to me was when I wasfree to really embrace my life
in a bigger way.
New beginnings, whilechallenging, offer opportunities
for being happier, freer, morealive.
(14:20):
Remember the quote you do notjust wake up and become the
butterfly.
Growth is a process.
I hope that you'll embrace theprocess.
So thank you for tuning intoday.
This is Anna McBride from sheAsks, the podcast that offers
practical hope.
Thank you for listening.
(14:46):
Tune in, come back, offer anyfeedback or suggestions you may
have for future podcasts.
We're here to listen.
Look forward to hearing fromyou.
Until soon, be well.
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