Tanya Hale 00:00 

Hey there, this is Intentional Living with Tanya Hale and this is episode number 187, "Growing Up After Divorce." Welcome to your place for finding greater happiness through intentional growth, because we don't just fall into the life of our dreams...we choose to create it. This is Tanya Hale and I'm your host for Intentional Living. 

Tanya Hale 00:21 

Well, hello there, my friends, welcome to the podcast today. Today I'm going to share with you a recording of a podcast that I was on. Podcast is called Latter-day Life Coaches, which is a bunch of LDS life coaches who are all trained at the Life Coach School, and you can hear interviews from coaches about all kinds of amazing topics so check that out if you're interested. In 

this interview I talked about what it's like to grow up after divorce, like the things that we learn, how we learn to step into ourselves, how we learn to find our courage and our confidence, and all those good things again and also talk about if you are not the one divorced but if you know people who are divorced, how can you interact with them in a way that is more supportive and more kind than we sometimes tend to do. I noticed that a lot of times for me people just don't know how to really respond and react to someone who is divorced and so there's some good insight on that as well. I hope you enjoy this podcast and I will talk to you next week. Ciao! 

Heather Rackham 01:24 

I am joined today with coach Tanya Hale, and can I just say that I love what I get to do. It's so fantastic. 

Tanya Hale 01:34 

I hear you. 

Heather Rackham 01:35 

Yeah, and you guys are going to get to hear a little bit about Tanya and what she does and we all, it's so fun because I think we're all in a place that we love to be and where we feel like we're creating an impact in the world. So Tanya, with that, why don't you introduce yourself, tell us about you, who you work with, and where you are making an impact in the world right now. 

Tanya Hale 01:56 

I will do that. Thanks Heather. So I'm an LCS certified coach. Certified for a little over two years. I work with middle-aged LDS women and I work with a lot of different areas in there, but one area that I work with that I really, really love is working with divorced women, because I am divorced. I was married for 24 years. It was always kind of an unhealthy place to be and always a struggle and I got divorced six years ago. And I will say that that was probably the toughest decision that I've ever made in my life. I think because we go into this space where we think, you know, "I didn't get married to get divorced." Divorce is 100-100, right? Like we hear all these little phrases that I think are really great if you're in a healthy space, but if you're not in a healthy space, I think those are really detrimental and I was always just kind of a fix-it person. So the thought that I would get divorced never even crossed my mind, you know, all those years growing up and it was so hard to get to a place where I felt like this was a decision that needed to be made. 

Tanya Hale 03:01 

And I know that there's a lot of men and women who feel this way, who find themselves in situations that necessitates a divorce for whatever reason. And it's a tough place to navigate. So this is the space that I love to work in. I love to help middle-aged people. And specifically, I really love helping women who are getting divorced and helping them navigate the self-love and sometimes the self-loathing, and navigating all the social situations that we end up in the church that are tough around divorce. And learning how to stand our own two feet again, right? In an emotional way that we may have not have had to for quite some time. 

Heather Rackham 03:40 

I'm gonna ask you this because I know people will ask, do you only work with women who are divorced, going through that process? Or do you work with men? Is it mostly women? 

Tanya Hale 03:52 

I actually have two male clients right now. So I do work with men as well. Probably more women seek for help when they're going through a divorce. But I do have two male clients who are working through their divorce, like, brain drama as well right now. So yeah. 

Heather Rackham 04:08 

Awesome. Well, thank you for clarifying that. And thank you for sharing some of your life experience. I think you can feel like an island. I have not been through that myself, but in watching other people and listening to so many stories. And especially within the church. And not that this is correct, or not that we want it to stay this way, but it can feel like you are going through this completely alone. And nobody else relates to you, and everybody else's life situation is different. And what a valuable resource it is just to even have somebody to talk to and know that they relate with you. 

Tanya Hale 04:42 

Yeah. I think it is challenging because people don't know what to do with us when we're divorced. They know what to do with people who are widowed. You know, they know how to reach out with kindness and they know how to reach out with compassion. Right about the same time that I got divorced, there was a wonderful woman in my ward whose husband died. And it was interesting because within a few weeks, my former spouse had moved out and her husband had died. And she had people at her house doing all kinds of projects and helping her through the winter and doing all of this stuff. And I didn't get very much of that at all. I mean, and even at church, people just were afraid to even come up and say, "Hey, I'm sorry to hear what you're going through," because people are uncomfortable. They feel like if people are widowed, that's okay. Right? But it seems like there's this sense that if you're divorced, that's not okay. You must have done something really wrong for you to be in this space. And I don't think that people really feel that way. But when you're the person who's divorced, sometimes it feels that way because people just don't know what to say. 

Heather Rackham 05:41 

I would actually love for you...Do you feel comfortable giving some suggestions of what people could or can do in that situation, when they know somebody who is going through a divorce? How could we show up differently? 

Tanya Hale 05:54 

I think the first thing we have to do is stop judging. and thinking that we know what's going on. I remember before I got divorced, and my marriage was tough, there was another lady in my ward who got divorced and I remember having, kind of appalled to say this, but I had a conversation with someone where I said, "well, gee whiz, if I can make my marriage work, then they should have been able to make theirs work." And I don't think that that's abnormal. I think that a lot of us step into this place of judgment, of thinking that they should be able to figure this out. And then after I realized that this was my path and that this was the option that I really needed to take, I obviously see it very differently now. And I see that it's a hard, painful thing. It was the single most difficult decision of my life to choose to get divorced because there's so much riding on that. And our children are one of those. And I'll tell you, children struggle with it as well. And that's a piece that I get to work with my clients with also on is how to help their children and how to be there for their children in all of this. 

Tanya Hale 06:54 

And I think just one of the first things people can do is just stand back and say, listen, I have no idea what you're going through. I have no idea why you are where you are. But guess what? I just get to love you anyway. And I get to just be kind to you. And I get to come up and say, hey, you know, I heard you got divorced. You know, what can I do for you? Reach out, you know, once in a while. Even, here's an example, just even last week, I have a dear friend for almost 20 years, and I was dating someone a bit ago, and we had planned to go out to dinner as couples. And then it came out that I was not dating this person anymore. And then it was like, "oh, well, I guess we can't go out to dinner." I was like, "I still am okay to go out to dinner. I can go out with me and you two other couples, that doesn't bother me." But there's this sense that we don't fit in anymore. And so, you know, if you have friends who are divorced, you reach out to them, invite them over, most of us are okay if it's me and a couple of couples, right? Because that's where we are in life. And if we always have to wait to hang out with other single people, you know, sometimes we're waiting a long time because single people are sometimes busy, you know, because we have we have a lot on our plates, trying to keep everything going the way that we need to. So dropping the judgment, you know, just inviting. We're still real people. You know, we may be divorced, but we're not a special category. You know, and I think sometimes we're treated as though we're a special category and we're not. 

Heather Rackham 08:21 

I think one of the things I'm hearing you say in that is to let it be their decision, meaning the person who has gone through  the divorce or is going through the divorce, let it be their decision whether or not they're going to participate. Don't just assume they don't want to participate in whatever it is you're doing. Like you ask and then they get to decide whether that's something that they want to do or not. 

Tanya Hale 08:43 

Absolutely. And it's just that invite or that offer. You know, I'm pretty independent. So even if my ministering brothers come over and say, "Hey, can we do this for you?" Generally, I'll go, "I got it. I'm okay." But even just the offer just means that I'm being seen as a person. And I think sometimes there's this sense of you're only seen as couples in the church. And so being seen still as a person is valuable. 

Heather Rackham 09:09 

And that's really one of our greatest desires, is to be known, to know that we, to feel that we matter and to be seen. Like, they kind of are all encompassing, but we just want to know that we are seen and matter to people. 

Tanya Hale 09:28 

Yeah. And I think when you go through a divorce, we feel very unseen sometimes. It's easy to move into that space. And I think that's why we find that a lot of people who get divorced drift away from the church for a while because they don't feel seen, because they don't feel like they belong there anymore. And I think it takes a person when we get divorced, we just have to decide, "listen, I'm divorced, but this is where I belong." And we just keep going, even if we sit on that bench by ourselves. And even if people are uncomfortable coming up and saying something. And that requires a lot of strength and a lot of mind work to move into that space as well when you're divorced. 

Heather Rackham 10:06 

I find it interesting because as we move into becoming a little bit more of an emotional adult, like being able to manage our own emotions and not make it others responsibility, we tend to think, "well, how they feel and how they interpret the situation is their job." Meaning, you know, somebody else, it's like, it's their responsibility to make of life what is, you know, what's happening for them. Like they get to choose how they're going to react to their life situation. And I think the piece that we forget is that we also have an influence. We're the circumstance in somebody's life. 

Tanya Hale 10:40 

Absolutely. 

Heather Rackham 10:41 

We forget that we, yes, how somebody reacts to a situation is their responsibility, but we actually have the responsibility to decide how we want to show up for other people, the kind of circumstance we want to be in other people's lives. So yes, we can take that removed stance and just not see people or not try to help in any sort of situation, but look at the circumstance we are creating for that person then when we remove ourselves. 

Tanya Hale 11:08 

And the thing is, there's two sides to this piece here, right? There's two people involved. There's me, as a divorced person, and then there's all these other people, right? And both of us get to choose how to show up. 

Heather Rackham 11:19 

Yes. 

Tanya Hale 11:19 

Both of us get to choose how to engage and how to show up in other people's circumstances. So even as someone who's divorced, I can show up at church and I can be the one to walk up to somebody and say, "hey, how are you today?" I don't have to sit on the back row and hope that somebody comes up to me. I still have that option to show up the way that I want to show up and to create the kinds of relationships that I want to create. And so stepping into that empowerment for me, in deciding that, okay, I'm divorced, but that's not who I am. I'm still Tanya. Just because I'm not married anymore doesn't make me less of a person. I still get to create the kinds of relationships at church and with people that I want to create. And I can have the party and I can invite my friends to the party instead of waiting to be invited to the party. 

Heather Rackham 12:10 

Yeah, Marital status. We put a lot of weight on that. But it really does not change who you are as a person. 

Tanya Hale 12:19 

No. No, it doesn't. In fact, I think that I've found that since I've been divorced, because of my specific circumstance, I think I've stepped more into who I am since my divorce than I was when I was married for sure. 

Heather Rackham 12:35 

Something happens when we have to dig deep and we have to make it through difficult situations. I think we do learn a lot about ourselves and discover what's really there and who's really there and what we've covered up in our lifetime. 

Tanya Hale 12:48 

Yeah, and I think we rely on other people. We kind of hide behind other people sometimes. And I think for me, getting divorced caused me to just step out and I had to start figuring things out for myself and I had to learn to just love myself and show up just as me. Right? And step into this space of knowing me and loving me and accepting me and being willing to put myself out there as an individual in a society that sometimes is very couples-oriented. And it's required a different kind of mindset, a different kind of strength, than I needed when I was married for sure. 

Heather Rackham 13:26 

I would think that in going through that process and discovering who you are, there is a lot of tapping in to see how Heavenly Father sees you as well. And trying to learn to see yourself through His eyes, through Heavenly Mother's eyes. Like there's something beautiful that probably happens in that process. And I'm curious if you could share with us a little bit about that acceptance piece because I think that that's probably something that you have battled with me, maybe I'm putting words in your mouth, but other people battle with too as they are going through divorce is like, is this acceptable to Heavenly Father? Am I acceptable to Heavenly Father? And where that all fits? 

Tanya Hale 14:03 

Yeah, you know what? I think that this is a tough space because there is so much pressure about, you know, temple marriage and being part of this. There's so much pressure in the Church sometimes. And so for me, I was married maybe longer than I should have been because of this idea that we're not supposed to get divorced. Like it's not an option to get divorced. And so I'll just take a step back. Like about four years before I got divorced, it was on my mind a lot and I just didn't know what to do. And I felt like I was like, you know, how do I move into this? And I was listening to an LDS psychologist in my car and a presentation that he had given. And at one point in the presentation, he stops, it was at a women's conference, he stops and he says, "for those of you who are divorced, I want you to realize that maybe God knew that your marriage wasn't going to be a celestial marriage. But maybe he also knew that that was the exact path that you needed to take to become the person that you need to become." 

Tanya Hale 15:06 

And I will say, I don't know that that's the case for everybody, but I will say that as I was driving my van down the road, I had one of the strongest spiritual manifestations I've ever had that that was true for me. It was a very strong impression that was like, "listen, it's okay." And I felt like God knew what I was going through. He knew that this was this was an option for me and probably the best option. And I knew from that that He was going to support me as I went through this. And even then, even having had that personal revelation for myself, it was not a quick and easy decision. It still took me another four years to get to the point where I had worked through a lot of my own drama about being divorced and having that stigma of being divorced and the fear of being on my own, and what's it going to do to my children, and how am I going to survive financially, and working through a lot of that. But I also knew from that experience and from others that I had after that, that God knew, and I knew that I had done the best that I knew how at that time. 

Tanya Hale 16:12 

And I've learned since then that I don't categorize my my divorce is a mistake. I don't categorize my marriage is a mistake. I see it as an experience that I needed to have that has helped me to grow into probably the best version of myself that I've ever been in. I'm in the best space of my life and, you know, just realizing that divorce is not our first choice. But sometimes it's the only choice or sometimes it is the best choice and I think that's okay. And recognizing that the whole purpose of the Atonement is because we're going to take steps, we're going to be in places that we don't want to be, we're going to have shortcomings. And that's why Christ gave us the Atonement, so that through all of these struggles that we go through, we can still find support and strength through the Atonement. 

Tanya Hale 16:50 

And you know, I don't look at my divorce as a mistake. I look at it as the exact path that God has given me to learn what I need to learn. And when I can trust God enough to step into that space, that's when I can begin to move forward. Because  really, I think my greatest growth has come since my divorce and the opportunities that I've had to become more self-aware and to look at myself and to see the negative and destructive and dysfunctional patterns of behavior that I engaged in in my marriage. And now learning, you know, looking back on those with grace as well, those were dysfunctional patterns for sure. 

But looking back at that and going, wow, you know, they were not helpful, but they kind of were. They really helped me survive a very, very difficult situation for a lot of years. And now they're not serving me anymore. So now I need to figure out how to replace those patterns and I need to figure out how to create something different. But I actually look back on a lot of those patterns with a lot of gratitude for the fact that they helped me to be strong and they helped me to make it through a tough situation. And I think standing back and saying, "look at the gifts that God gave me to work through that situation.HLook at the gifts he gave me to be able to make the decision to get divorced and look at the gifts He has given me since my divorce, to move into a better, stronger, healthier space." I feel so much gratitude to my Heavenly Father for being right by me the entire way. And when I believe that and when I recognize that, it gives me that spiritual strength that I need to continue to just move on and help other people. Because I think if this is our path, God is there. And He's been there the whole time. And recognizing that and believing that and accepting that I think is a huge space of healing for us as we go through the divorce process and the after-divorce process as well. 

Heather Rackham 18:58 

I think we have no idea what we are capable of. I think there's something that changes for us when we really can have the peace and accept the knowledge that we do have loving Heavenly Parents who are standing right beside us, helping us through all the situations that we are faced with in our life. And I think without that knowledge, I know there has been times in my life where I think, "yeah, I've got this, I can do this." And I do just fine. But when I actually bring it to Heavenly Father and when I actually think," I've got this," and I know He is guiding me, I know He's gonna help me, there is a whole different level of security. There's a whole different level of strength that I feel when I am able to rely on that support and acknowledge that it's there. Because I feel like all of us, that He's always there, like He's not gonna turn His back on us, but it's when we turn to him and acknowledge "yes, he is there," that actually that's where our strength comes, is in acknowledging that He's there He's helping us and we're able to do so much. 

Tanya Hale 20:08 

Yeah and even if you're the person who created such havoc in your marriage with whatever you may have been engaged in or whatever you did, even if you were like the main person, which I don't know if there's ever really a main person, but you know even if you see yourself as that, it's totally okay. Because that is the process, that is our life experience that we were sent down here to do. Listen, sometimes we're going to make mistakes. Sometimes we're going to do things that go against 

our values and against the way that we really want to live, and that's part of our humanity. Sometimes that is what is humanly possible for us, is that we step into these these big messes. And I think that's okay. That's why God gave us the blessing of our Savior. 

Heather Rackham 20:51 

Yeah, and it's not that we're going out and intentionally making messes. You know, that's not what we're saying. "Yep. Go out and intentionally make whatever messes because God's there." It happens, right, like things don't always go as we plan. And regardless, we're never alone in the situation. 

Tanya Hale 21:11 

And God knew we were gonna make mistakes. He sent us down here with full knowledge that we would make mistakes. It's just like we don't sit our six month old in a high chair with food and expect them not to make a mistake. I mean, we fully expect them to come out of that with spaghetti in their hair and all over and in their diaper. I mean, we just expect that because that's where they are. And I think God sends us down here to earth and just says "listen, I know you're gonna make mistakes, so here you go. Here's Jesus Christ to help clean you up and to help make this work." And eventually we get better at some things, but we're always gonna make mistakes. And again I love your point that we don't go out and make mistakes on purpose, but whatever is humanly possible means that it's fraught with mistakes and that there's gonna be a lot of missteps in there. But again, a lot of times those mistakes lead to our greatest successes. And I think that that's a beautiful part of the Atonement as well, is that it opens the door to some of our greatest discoveries about ourselves. 

Heather Rackham 22:09 

Yeah, I think this piece of the conversation very much is us learning to love ourselves regardless of what's happening in our life. Being able to accept who we are and care for ourselves and love ourselves and have our own back, even amid the hardships and the trials. 

Tanya Hale 22:29 

Absolutely. Right? Like getting to this place where I accept myself, where I love myself, where I love the path that I'm walking, and I see that it's directed by God. This creates a peace, it creates a courage, creates a confidence that I can move forward regardless of what the future holds. And this is what I'm able to help my clients move into, is this space where they learn to take 100% responsibility for where they are. And you know, we all make mistakes whether we're married or divorced, we're all making mistakes all the time. And when we can learn to take 100% responsibility and to stop blaming the other person, in the case of someone who's divorced, stop blaming your spouse for all the things, and learn to just say, listen, you know what, give them grace for being a human and for making mistakes. Give me grace for being human and making mistakes. Forgiving them, forgiving me, I just love this space of grace that we create that says, listen, we're humans, we're going to make mistakes. It's okay. And it's okay if our path is a divorce path. It's okay if our path is not a divorced path. Whatever our path is, I know for sure that it is the path that God has the greatest lessons for me to learn. And learning to accept that I'm not a mistake, that there's nothing wrong with me because I'm divorced, that maybe there's everything right with me because maybe that was the exact same path that God wanted me to be on for whatever reason. There's just so many things we don't have answers to. 

Tanya Hale 24:07 

The first couple of years after I got divorced thinking, "did God really tell me to marry him? Was that really the answer that I thought, was it God or was it me?" And I spent a lot of time on that and I finally hit a point where I'm like, "you know what, it really just doesn't matter. What matters is what I do from this point on." You know, I look back and I'm like, "I don't know, did God tell me to marry him? I thought he did at the time. Maybe he didn't," but whether he did or not, that was the path that I took. And now I just get to learn from this path and I get to step into a space of greater awareness and greater enlightenment and greater self-awareness as I learn from whatever path I took and become a better version of myself from now on. 

Heather Rackham 24:48 

It can be scary to accept responsibility, to take responsibility from, accepts the wrong word. It is really scary to just be responsible for your own situation, for your own actions because it feels better to have it be somebody else's responsibility. It's their job. They're the one that caused the problem and it just seems like we can wash our hands of it and walk away. And that feels like the safer thing to do when actually what we don't realize is we actually do want to take responsibility because we actually can control ourselves. We can control our reaction to this. We can control the results that we're producing in our life. And so when we take the responsibility, we are actually taking ownership and it feels so much more empowering than when we are blaming it on somebody else and making it responsibility of somebody else, rather than taking it on as our own. 

Tanya Hale 25:43 

Yeah, and when you get divorced, there is a big huge person to blame that's not me. But as long as I am blaming, I am living in disempowerment. I'm living in victim mode. As long as I'm blaming everything on my ex-spouse, my previous spouse, I'm in a space where I'm stuck. I can't move forward because if it's all their fault, then that keeps me boxed in. As soon as I start stepping into responsibility for the things that I brought to the marriage that were not healthy and the dysfunctional patterns 

that I engaged in, as soon as I open up a space in my heart to look at that, then I can start growing and moving. And I think what that really requires is, first of all, that space that I create in my heart has to come from a space of self-love. My own self-love creates a safe space for me to then take my dysfunctional patterns, put them in that safe space in my heart. And then I can look at it with compassion and love. If I'm looking at those things with judgment and with disdain, then it's never gonna be productive for me. 

Tanya Hale 26:49 

So if I create that space of self-love first, and then I can bring in all these dysfunctional patterns, I can start taking responsibility for all the things that I contributed to the demise of my marriage. And then I can look at them with compassion and with curiosity. And rather than saying, "oh my gosh, I can't believe I did this," I can go, "wow, fascinating." Like look at how I moved into these patterns of manipulation or these patterns of passive aggressive behavior. Look at what I engaged in and why did I do that? Like let me see what was going on behind that. And when I can move into that space of seeing how I contributed and then getting curious about the things that I did, then I can start to move into a better space because I understand what was going on and I can approach those with compassion and I can go, "well, of course I moved into manipulation because I thought it was going to create this for me" or it was helping me to fill this in the short term. And when I can look at myself with that compassion and look at the patterns and the situations that I brought up with curiosity  and take responsibility for those, then I can create a space of healing and moving forward and getting unstuck. As long as I'm blaming, I'm stuck in a cycle of where I never get out. I'm certain it's probably part of the natural process is the blaming piece. 

Heather Rackham 28:12 

It's going to be there. There's going to be some blame in everything. But I think if we can recognize that that's part of the process, we also then don't have to judge ourselves and be upset with ourselves when we find ourselves blaming. But also when we are able to see that we are blaming without judgment, without seeing that, we're not able to then see where we want to go. We're not able to see the person that we want to become. and the things that we want to step through. So it's almost like though we don't want it to be there, that blaming piece needs to be there because it helps us to then figure outward as we want to make some changes, where we can take back our power. That helps us be compassionate about that person, I think, who is blaming because we realize that's a necessary piece to some extent, even though we don't want to stay there for a long time. 

Tanya Hale 28:59 

I think it's so normal for our brains to go there, right? I mean, that's our primitive brain saying, "listen, I want to be safe here." And so finding somebody else to blame is very natural. I probably went the first year after my marriage, like, not seeing my stuff at all. I was in this space where, "look, it was him, it was him, it was him," but I started doing work along these lines. I didn't have life coaching at that point, but I started engaging in this kind of work. And then I was able to start seeing myself and let go of that blame. And that's when I really started to make some progress. And I think you're right though. I mean, our brains are naturally going to want to look for somebody else to blame. That's what they do. you But when we can start being more consciously aware of what's going on and really consciously start stepping into responsibility for my own behaviors, how do I want to show up now? Because we can't go back and change the past, but I can change what I do today. And I can move into that better version of myself, even though I wasn't her five years ago. Now I am. And that's where we want to want to move into, is this space of progress, this space of "that's what I was, but this is what I am. And this is where I'm going." And understanding that we don't have to stay stuck in the person that we were in a dysfunctional marriage. You know, I look back on that, Tanya, and I'm like, "ooh, I don't even recognize her anymore. I don't even know who that girl is," because now I'm such a different person. 

Tanya Hale 30:26 

And we don't get divorced and stall out. Hopefully we can get divorced and continue to move on and continue to grow and continue to move into better versions of ourselves. And I think it's easy for a lot of people to get stuck, partially because we get stuck in the blaming, but also, you know, we feed into this victim mentality sometimes as well that says, woe is me, my life is so hard, the people at church don't talk to me. And we start looking for all the ways that we don't fit in, and all the ways that that it's all going wrong. And we do have an option to look at from another viewpoint, and to move into a healthier, happier, better version of ourselves. 

Heather Rackham 31:07 

So true. And I think, you know, just to recognize that you're a better version of yourself now, to use your words. But that doesn't mean that the person who you were back then was not the best version of you. At that point either, right? Like, we were always in the moment the best version of ourselves that we can be because none of us are like, "I'm just going to go about being the mediocre me." Like we're all doing our best, we are the best version of ourselves at the moment. But the beauty of this life is that we're here to just keep evolving. And it's such a gift. 

Tanya Hale 31:43 

Yeah, you know, I look back on my married years and I see a lot of dysfunctional behavior, but I'm also like, you know, that was what I knew. Yeah. I was trying my hardest to figure it out and I was doing everything I knew how to make it work. And, you know, I just didn't have very good tools back then. And I think that's okay. That's why I think that Heavenly Father can look at my situation and go, "it's okay." It's not the worst thing in the world to get divorced. Is it a tough situation? Yeah. Am I eternally, you know, gonna be punished for it? Absolutely not. Right? It's just an experience that I've had in my life that has given me an opportunity to learn and to grow and to progress. And, you know, people have different experiences. Some of us get divorced. Some of us have mental illness. Some of us have spouses dying early on in life. Some of us have physical ailments. I mean, we all have different challenges in life. And I think divorce is just one of those. Unfortunately, it comes with a big stigma that we've done something wrong and that, you know, we weren't faithful enough or we weren't good enough. And I don't think any of that is even necessarily valid or true. I think sometimes it's just one more experience that some  people get to have. And I don't think that takes away from the sanctity of marriage at all. I'm a firm believer in marriage and celestial marriage and the beauty of marriage. But I think as well, that this is just one more opportunity to have an experience where God can take us down a path where there's a lot to learn and a lot of personal growth to go through. 

Heather Rackham 33:16 

So fantastic. While we're on the subject of religion and God and before we go, do have a scripture or any sort of religious reference that you feel has helped you in your life or helps you as a coach in this area as well? You know what I do. I have a quote that I love from Marvin J. Ashton. He died a long time ago, but this quote, I think I love this because it applies to me as far as how I feel about myself and also how I feel about toward my former spouse, right? Like putting me in the mindset. And he said, "perhaps the greatest charity comes when we are kind to each other." So I think about this as being kind to my former spouse, but also being kind to me through this process. So kind of applying it that way. Continuing on, he says, "when we don't judge or categorize someone else, when we simply give each other the benefit of the doubt or remain quiet, charity is accepting someone's differences, weaknesses, and shortcomings, having patience with someone who has let us down or resisting the impulse to become offended when someone doesn't handle something the way we might have hoped. Charity is refusing to take advantage of another's weakness and being willing to forgive someone who has hurt us. Charity is expecting the best of each other." 

Tanya Hale 34:33 

And I think that encapsulates a lot of what we talked about, right? Like, giving myself space to make mistakes, giving my former spouse the grace to be a human and to have made mistakes as well, even after the divorce as things come up, right? Moving into this space of true charity for both of us and realizing that both of us were doing the best we knew how. And both of us are still doing the best we know how. There's no part of me that believes that my former spouse is not doing the best that he knows. And with that, I get to choose how to show up. I get to choose to be the kind of person that I want to be and to offer him grace and to offer me grace. And I just love that because, you know, we're all humans. And the more that we can just give people space to be humans and step out of judgment, and step out of the harshness that we often want to exact on people, the more I'm capable of feeling the spirit and the more I can walk my own path in the way that I want to walk it. 

Heather Rackham 35:35 

I appreciate so much that you shared that because the word "charity" is actually what landed me where I am today. So I was kind of doing some work and I was reading this book that was helping me to have a different perspective on a relationship that I had in my life that was causing me a lot of pain. And then I worked with a coach a little bit and she helped to, she kind of gave me some tools for having a different perspective, for seeing something a little bit differently. And as I was pondering that later on in the evening, I had this feeling and this thought overcome me that was this is the way to have charity, because before I had always been like, "I don't understand how to have charity...Christlike love for all the people, all the people that make me crazy and do all the things that I don't agree with? Like, how is this even possible?" That piece of the gospel felt so impossible to me to have charity and to love everybody like Christ. And then I started learning tools and ways to have different perspectives and how to retrain my brain in ways that I didn't even know were possible. And I sat there thinking, "oh, this is the way, like, this is the piece I've been missing," is the actual "how to" change some perspective so that I can have charity. And it's changed everything for me. And it led me to where I am because when I felt the power of those things, I was like, and I got to help other people learn how to have some different perspectives too so that all the people can have charity in their lives because it feels so good. 

Tanya Hale 37:10 

Yeah. And moving into a space where we, we let go of the anger and we let go of the frustration and we let go of all the years of hurt. You know, a lot of us are coming into a divorce space with a lot of hurt and a lot of years of built up resentment and anger and learning how to let go of that and learning how to really move into that space of charity for our former spouse and charity for ourself is a beautiful, beautiful space of healing that allows us to to spin out of that stuck cycle and start creating what we want to create in our lives. 

Heather Rackham 37:47 

So good. Okay, Tanya, tell people how they can get more of you, how they can find you. 

Tanya Hale 37:52 

I know because everybody's going to want more. 

Heather Rackham 37:54 

They are. 

Tanya Hale 37:55 

Alright, so I am on Facebook and I'm on Instagram. You can find me at Tanya Hale LDS Life Coaching. I also have a podcast called Intentional Living with Tanya Hale and it is really geared toward middle-aged LDS women, but all the concepts we talk about are super applicable, you know, if you're looking for divorce stuff as well, but just really good stuff on there that I'm really proud of. I have a website, tanyahale.com And actually currently on my website, I have a free offer called "moving forward after divorce," where people can can download a PDF about how to move forward after their divorce and you know, how to just start moving into a better space where we feel more connected with ourselves and more connected with God and more connected with where we're going so. 

Heather Rackham 38:42 

So good. Okay, folks, I know you all know somebody out there who is going through this situation or has recently gone through divorce or not so recently gone through divorce and how grateful they would be if you shared this with them. So share these things ,share this with your friends, so that they can get the help that that's out there and just even if they just listen and get a new perspective. So thank you so much for being here with us, Tanya, I appreciate it so much. 

Tanya Hale 39:09 

You are so welcome I've loved being here. Thanks, Heather. 

Heather Rackham 39:12 

That's fantastic. 

Tanya Hale 39:13 

Thank you so much for joining me today. If you would love to receive some weekend motivation be sure to sign up for my free "weekend win" Friday email: a short and quick message to help you have a better weekend and position yourself for a more connected week. Go to tanyahale.com to sign up and learn more about life coaching and how it can help you get to your best self ever. See ya.