FULL TRANSCRIPT – DIVORCE ETC… PODCAST WITH exEXPERTS

SEASON 3, EPISODE 48 – GETTING YOUR SHIT TOGETHER AFTER DIVORCE

Jessica: Do you ever look around and wonder how everyone else seems to have their shit together after divorce? You’re feeling like a hot mess trying to drag yourself out of the dumps while drowning under the pressure of trying to take care of all the things. Do you want the secrets and top tips on how to get your shit together? Well, you’re welcome because that’s exactly what we’re talking about in today’s episode of the Divorce etc… podcast. We’re the exEXPERTS, Jessica and T.H. We focus on helping you navigate your divorce and successfully move on with your life. Please follow us on all social media at exEXPERTS, and check out www.exexperts.com for tons of free divorce related resources. Let’s bring in today’s guest.

T.H.: Oh my God, you guys, I met Jamie Hess through a friend, and it was like an instant connection. I mean, I felt that way. I don’t know if you did, Jamie. But anyway, Jamie had to be on our show. She is a TV personality and the co-creator of the popular Instagram account @nycfitfam with her husband, George. She is a wellness mentor and lifestyle expert. She’s got her hands into a million projects. Make sure you follow her on Instagram. She is going to help us help you really get your shit together after a trauma, and here of course, we are focused on divorce. Welcome to our show.

Jamie: Thank you. Let’s get our shit together.

T.H.: Let’s get it together. It’s hard to get it together. You really want to. Like, “I really want to get my shit together. I don’t even know where to start.” That’s what people tell me. I don’t even know how you got to where you are because I can’t even get out of bed.

Jamie: First of all, stop thinking anybody else actually has their shit together. That’s number one, right? Give yourself grace. That is a full lie if anyone’s ever told you that, myself included. I joke about this all the time that I’m a wellness expert that often could really stand to take a dose of her own medicine or a piece of her own advice. I’m very vocal about that and have been since the beginning. I think it’s so important. I think that’s why my account @nycfitfam took off in the first place. I was in PR and marketing for 17 years. I had a normal big girl job. I was never trying to be an influencer for a living. I’m an actual grown up. But my husband and I—43, 63 years old—neither of us were like, “We could be influencers!” We’re not millennials. But God bless the influencer world that that is a job. It’s kind of cool. Because what ended up happening for me was we just started sharing our life, warts and all, and what it was like to do wellness in the context of real life, and people were digging it. And so the account took off, really through my pregnancy journey and a few other things that kind of made it click. I was like, well, wow, I have this opportunity to really share best practices, especially healthy life hacks for working moms and just all sorts of different people that were my contemporaries. Then that’s what I did. In the last six years, I’m now a wellness entrepreneur. I am on QVC, which is why I live here in Pennsylvania, I’m a television personality that talks about all things wellness, and I talk about mindset and radical behavior change on stages across America. The behavior change part is the biggest piece for me. I’ll tell you guys this, because this is where I think it really comes in with divorce, and this is like my fun mic drop moment, I was a sick and suffering drug addict. Okay, let’s just put that on the table right now. I came from the depths of despair. What’s interesting about that, T.H., you know, Jessica, I’m not sure if you know this, but my mom is TV personality, Joan Lunden. She hosted Good Morning America for almost 20 years. I mentioned that to say I was never supposed to be a drug addict. That was not on my bingo card.  Do you know what I mean?

T.H.: That wasn’t the plan.

Jamie: My mom was like America’s mom, American as apple pie. I was never supposed to fall into that life. But I really did. I was really sick and unwell. I stayed in it I think for longer because I didn’t want to raise my hand because I was so ashamed because I was supposed to be perfect, right? And so I say to all women everywhere, the longer you stay in the shame, like, “I should be able to fix this myself. I should be perfect. I shouldn’t have to ask anybody else for help,” the longer you’re going to stay sick. We’re only as sick as our darkest secret. For me, that was addiction. We all have something. We’re all in recovery from something.

T.H.: Yeah.

Jamie: Overthinking, overworking, a bad relationship, burnout. As soon as you raise your hand and ask for help, that is the moment when that that problem, that affliction loses its power over you. When I got sober and well, that’s when I gained pretty much all of my core skills that I still talk about to this day on stages.

T.H.: So what was it that made you raise your hand?

Jamie: Well, it had gotten really dark for a really long time. I do wish I had raised my hand quite before that, to be honest. I stayed sick for years longer than I had to. I finally just got sick and tired of being sick and tired. I don’t want to say that I was on death’s door, but like maybe. I don’t know. I’m not really sure.

T.H.: Right, right.

Jamie: You know what’s funny you guys, and I’ll take us on a windy road back to some of my top tips, but I’ll just say this, T.H., you were on my podcast Off The Gram, which is my wellness podcast that I’ve had for the last four years. I have a new podcast that’s launching next year called the Gratitudeology Podcast. Because I believe everything—I believe an attitude of gratitude is the heartbeat of happiness. So, I built this whole system around gratitude. I mention this because the first episode, I wanted to tell my story and why I started this podcast in the way that I started it. My mom sat down with me for that episode, because I was like, I don’t want it to be just my voice. Usually, I’m the narrator. How can I do this? My friend was like, “Duh, invite your mom to tell the story through her POV.”

Jessica: Right, exactly.

T.H.: Yeah, yeah.

Jamie: Her view of that time. My mom and I sat down and had the conversation that we had never had, that we’ve been waiting to have for 20 years.

T.H.: Wow.

Jamie: About when she finally came and banged down my door and was like, “What is going on?” And I’m so grateful to her because I actually couldn’t find the strength. I had dialed her phone number 50 times, the first six digits, right?

T.H.: Right, and hang up the phone.

Jamie: I couldn’t press send. Finally, she did the brave thing for me. If you’re in a place that feels rather hopeless, which by the way, no shame—I mean, I cried 45 minutes ago, let’s just be real. I’m really tired. I got off a red eye. I’m just worn out. We all have those moments. You’re a human being; it’s okay. I cried, and my husband was like, “Oh, don’t.” I’m like, “No, I actually am okay. I just need to cry for a minute. Okay, I’m better. I’m better.” We just need to be human. If you’re in that moment, ask for help. The people around us want to help us, like your sister, your girlfriends. By not asking for help, you’re robbing that person of the chance to be a hero, because people like showing up for each other. When you think, “Oh, everyone’s too busy. She doesn’t need to be worried about my stuff. She’s got her own kids. She’s got her own—”

T.H.: People say that all the time, “I don’t want to be a burden.”  

Jessica: I think especially when you’re coming out of a divorce. T.H. and I have had this conversation so many times. Because since we got divorced at the exact same time, we were in the thick of it together every day, like sharing every detail about what was going on. Because we were also going through it, we could totally relate to it. Then it’s like, we didn’t want to talk to other people about it because are they going to be like, “Oh my God, she’s talking about her divorce again,” or dragging it on and on. People want to know you’re okay. They want to know your stuff, but then they want to know that you’re okay, and they can walk away—

T.H.: And move on and talk about them.

Jessica: Exactly. It’s challenging to ask for help.

Jamie: Yeah, it’s time and place, right? Obviously, if you’re going on and on at a cocktail party, it can be difficult. That can be a difficult situation. But if you can take that moment and be vulnerable and ask a friend and tell them what you really need, like, not just droning on and on or speaking badly about him because you just really need to vent, people can put up with that for a certain duration of time. But what I’m talking about is that real vulnerability, leading with the ask, like, “I’m really struggling. This is what I need. Can you help me?” By the way, as a coach, I have a coaching program called The Big Ask Method. I teach women to ask for the help that they need in achieving their goals. But I talk a lot about accountability. In the very beginning, when you’re the most devastated, it could be, “I need accountability to get out of the house three times a week. Can I tell you what my plans are? One day, I’m going to Pilates; one day, we’ll go to lunch; and one day, we’ll go to the movies.”

T.H.: Right, so you have a check in.

Jamie: Yeah. It’s just about asking for that type of help. It’s not exhausting everybody, but it’s intentionally asking for help.

T.H.: Right. Also, people don’t know what to do for you. They don’t know what to say. They’re going to say the wrong thing. If you don’t express exactly what works for you, kind of set up your boundaries like, “I don’t want to talk about this in public. But can I come over on Sunday? Can we go for a walk?” People can’t read your mind, and you can’t expect them to read your mind, especially if they’re not even going through the experience. Your addiction recovery, our divorces, I could never help you in the right way, Jamie. I could be a friend and a listener, but what else can I do? Then you would tell me what I can do. “Well, because you are who you are, this is what I need. I need to go for a walk three times a week. Will you come with me?” That’s when I say, “Yes, I can do that.”

Jamie: Yeah.

T.H.: So, yeah, not reading minds. 

Jessica: I do feel like that’s a great tip for everyone listening. Because we all when we’re coming out of divorce feel like we’re in that lonely, vulnerable space. Even if it’s not about length of time droning on and on, it’s like, people who haven’t been divorced don’t really get it and don’t know how to support you in the right way. And so that is really challenging. Give us more. What else can people be doing to be able to move on in a positive way? We’re all about moving on and living your best life afterwards, but knowing that while you’re in this place of deciding to get divorced, going through the divorce, and immediately thereafter, it’s going to suck.

Jamie: It does suck.

Jessica: You have to push through the suckiness to get to the good stuff.

Jamie: You’re right.

T.H.: And it takes work.

Jamie: You’re right.

T.H.: Don’t think anything that’s worth it is easy, because it’s not.

Jamie: It’s not. It’s tough. It is similar, to be honest, to early recovery, right? When I was in early recovery, in that time when I was still white knuckling it, I was still very much stuck in my own head. Some of the tips that I got in recovery communities were things like, when you’re stuck in your own head, reach out your hand and be of service. I was like, what? I’d never heard that advice before. You know what I mean? Like, oh, when you have a problem with somebody else, pray for them. I was like, who? The audacity—what are you talking about, lady? My sponsor was just dropping these bombs, and I was like, I’m not the victim all time?

T.H.: Right, right, like, there’s someone else?

Jessica: Oh, yeah, there’s a victim mentality.

Jamie: And by the way, you might very well be victimized by some of the situations. But the point is, is that when we have a resentment—in Latin, it’s literally resentment: to feel again—you are the one dredging up, dredging up, dredging up. You don’t have the choice in the initial action, what was done to you, but you have the choice and how you process and reprocess and reprocess it, to beat yourself over the head with it. So, what are you going to do to get out of your head? What are you going to do to get out of your mind? I always say my mind is not a place to go without adult supervision. I shouldn’t be up there just hanging around. It’s like a dirty old playground that you don’t want to—there are wicked people up there. We don’t go there without helpers. It’s really about being around people and not living life on your own in a vacuum. Again, being of service is a really great way to get out of your head. You might think, “Well, I’m a mom. Yeah, trust me, honey, I’m of service.” It’s different, right? It’s different.

T.H.: It is.

Jamie: Finding ways to be intentionally of service is a really great way to feel good about yourself. We build self esteem by doing esteemable acts.

T.H.: Like what? Like what? Like volunteering?

Jamie: Yeah.

T.H.: Going and helping—whatever, wrap gifts at the holidays? I mean, is that—

Jamie: Literally that. This is the great thing about 12 Step Recovery, it’s all free, right? When you go to the meetings, there’s a lot of what they call service positions. So, you come early, you make the coffee, you’re the greeter, you sweep up after the meeting. That’s awesome because it gives you purpose again. It gives you a reason to show up. You’re accountable. If you’re making the coffee, you don’t get to sit in bed and wallow and be like, “Maybe I just won’t go. Nobody even cares if I show up anyway.” You’re making the damn coffee. You better get your butt over there. Because then when you get there, you see people, and they’re joyful—

T.H.: And it’s good to be around that. It’s so healthy to be around other people. We talked about loneliness last week, and I was saying that some of the things you can do, maybe as a first step, is to go to the park. You don’t have to talk to anybody, but people might say hi to you. It’s also a safe space for you to practice saying hi to strangers with a smile, like practice it. It does take practice, because the town that I lived in and raised my children in, no one acknowledged anybody. Literally, people walked past you. I’m a big walker, and people would walk past you on the street and not even acknowledge you. Now I live in a different town and everybody waves. They ask about the dog, “I love the house,” they’re waving at me at the window as they walk by my house. I was on the phone with somebody, and I’m like, “Wait a second, someone’s walking by. I have to get out.” I’m like, “How are you? How’s the dog?” In the other town, I would have kept the headphones in and just kept my conversation going like it’s not okay. So go to a park. If you work from home like we do, go work at Starbucks one day a week. Because I’m in my house, I have different places to work all week, but I’m still alone in my house.

Jessica: Right.

Jamie: Yeah.

T.H.: Sometimes when I just have to listen to something, I go to Starbucks to be around people. By the way, I don’t drink coffee. 

Jessica: The human connection really though is so strong.

T.H.: It’s important. It’s so important.

Jessica: When you’re going through something hard and deep and traumatic and you’re feeling vulnerable, it is a lot easier to just not be around people, for sure.  

Jamie: Yeah. But you have to force yourself to do the hard thing, and that’s why I’m such a big proponent of structure, discipline, accountability. Sorry to be the annoying fitness expert, but my account started as a fitness account, and it’s grown to so much more, but that will always be the anchor. My fitness practice and intentional movement practice, whatever you want it to be—yoga, pilates, a walk, weightlifting, I don’t care—I don’t just show up for that workout every morning because I want a hot body. Yeah, we all want a hot body. That’s not why I go. I go to show myself that I can keep an appointment with myself because I’m a priority. If I have a call with the CMO of a multimillion dollar company that day, that appointment on my calendar—my workout, is as important to me as that call is. It’s non-negotiable.

Jessica: Can we just have you repeat that for a second, that you do this because why?

Jamie: I keep my workout appointment that’s on my calendar with myself, and by the way, it’s on my shared calendar with my husband, so I can’t squirrel out of it. He knows what I planned. I do it on Sunday night for the next seven days. He knows the plan, right? You could do this with a sister, with a friend, with whomever, so you guys keep each other accountable. That workout every morning is as important to me as my most important meeting of the day.

Jessica: No, but you were saying because it shows you—

Jamie: It shows me that I will show up for myself, and that I matter, and that my health matters, and that the promise I made to myself for that day matters. And so that workout in the morning is what the rest of my day is anchored around.

Jessica: I kind of love that. Everyone talks about self care and it’s so important, and you’re so busy taking care of everybody else. You have to make time for yourself. But the way that you said that, like you do it to show yourself that you matter, that the appointment that you’re going to keep for yourself matters, I just love that philosophy.

T.H.: Way of thinking.

Jessica: Yeah. Yeah, I feel the way that you articulated that really hits.

Jamie: Yeah.

T.H.: Guys, we’re just going to pause for a quick moment here. Because we know it’s hard to get honest and reliable information about your divorce and how to move on from it, so we’ve done the work for you. As the exEXPERTS, we get questions every day from people looking for a trustworthy resource to support them through this difficult time. From legal, money, kids, self-care, making yourself a priority, and all of the stuff, we cover it all at www.exexperts.com and here on our Divorce etc… podcast. Be sure to subscribe to our weekly newsletter to hear directly from us as we educate you on how to navigate your way through divorce and get what you need and have what you want. Visit www.exexperts.com. We’ve lived it, so we get it.

Jessica: So, look, there’s no question that telling people to be able to at some point in their day, move your body, do something for yourself, it’s endorphins. It makes you happier. You’re in a more positive mood. But that’s the beginning part of getting your shit together, right? It’s like we go out there, and then we’re looking at everyone else. How come their kids aren’t acting like my kids? How come they’re able to juggle X, Y and Z, and I can barely get grocery shopping?

T.H.: Comparing yourself to other people.

Jessica: Right, exactly.

T.H.: What’s your tip for that?

Jessica: Yeah.

Jamie: So here’s the thing, my system that I teach on stages is called Gratitudeology. It’s a word that I trademarked. It’s essentially the study and practice of gratitude. A lot of the time when I tell people that we’re going to talk about gratitude, I get like a little eye roll, or I can see a little internal eye roll. I’m like, “It’s okay, I get it,” especially from a dude. I’m like, “Okay.” I was like, “Let me tell you why this is not your grandmother’s version of gratitude, alright?” First of all, what I talk about is very research backed. There’s a lot of neuroscientific evidence that having a daily gratitude practice will literally change your outlook, your neuroscientific outlook. This is a lifestyle protocol that will change your brain. When I talk about having a daily gratitude practice, you can have a gratitude journal. That’s cute. But to be honest, I think the gratitude journal is a little overdone. She’s a little watered down. People don’t do it, right? It’s a nice intention. Do we really do it? Does it really make a difference? Eh. Okay, it’s good if you do it. Great, keep doing it. But let’s be real. I have a couple of intentional gratitude exercises that I like to do that include some sort of movement, some sort of iconography, some sort of pro-social connection, because I really believe that gratitude is a pro-social experience. I’ll tell you one that’s kind of funny, and this is what got me through my whole early recovery, and you guys might like this. When I first went into 12 Step Recovery, I was very much not religious. Today, it’s different. I have my own connection with my spirituality that’s my own personal journey. But I didn’t get it. Let’s be real, most people who go into AA, we weren’t going to church on Sunday morning. I just didn’t know what they were talking about. I mean, I sat down at my first meeting, and the guy was like, “The day I overdosed was the best day of my life because that was the day I got my connection with my higher power.” I was like, “Your who now?” I was like, “What cult did I just wander into?” I was so confused. So I kind of shared that that night in the round robin. I was like, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I just want to put down the drugs. Can you help?” This old timer wandered up to me at the end of the meeting. He was like, “Hey, kid, come over here.” He’s like, “Yeah, it’s okay, you can be an atheist. You don’t have to believe in God. That’s fine. Let me ask you a question. You got a bar of soap?” I was like, “Yeah, I’ve got a bar soap.” He said, “Okay, great. In the morning, I want you to go into your bathroom. I want you to write on your mirror H-E-L-P in that soap, because now that stands for His Ever Loving Presence, but you don’t have to worry about that. Just ask for help.” He said, “At the end of the day, I want you to go back in there. I want you to wipe it off. I want you to write thank you.” That experience, because that is prayer and meditation, asking the universe for help is prayer, and listening for the answer is meditation or being grateful for however the answers came, that was my first exercise with gratitude, and I did that with the bar soap. Because I had to actually physically do it. I couldn’t just think it in my head.

T.H.: Right. You had to see it and take the action.

Jessica: Right.

Jamie: That gratitude exercise changed the game for me, where I started all of a sudden seeing my struggles as opportunities. Every struggle I used to have, I would just numb out from. That’s what I learned. You don’t learn to have mature grownup processing when you’re a drug addict, you just numb out. All of a sudden, I was like, oh, a fight with a friend? I’m so grateful, a chance to practice compassion. Oh, a difficult conversation with my boss? Wow, a chance to practice courage. Wow, a rude commuter on the subway? Awesome, a chance to practice empathy. I started reframing all of these things that would have seemed really hard and scary. It was like a magical light switch flipped in my head. Having a gratitude practice is proven to not only make you happier, but to make you suffer less physical pain, you have a better immune system, you experience better self esteem, you do better at work, all of that. Just like you want to put your Pilates class on your calendar, you got to do something that brings that gratitude notion into your day, because I promise you, it will start to rewire your brain.

Jessica: I love that. I feel like it’s a skill for you to have been able to look at situations like that and then say, “Oh, rude commuter on the subway? A chance for me to practice empathy.” How did you even get to that mindset? Because I do feel like everybody listening who’s going through really hard struggles with a divorce, when things like that happen, it’s like, “Why me? Oh my God, my day was already bad. Now this happened, and it’s going to make it worse.” I mean, it’s challenging to reframe that way.

T.H.: It’s like, what’s the lesson here? What’s the lesson in struggle?

Jessica: But how did you know what to think about? How do you know to put together the empathy with the rude commuter?  

Jamie: Well, I’m very lucky that I was a sick and suffering drug addict, because addiction is the only disease that you come out on the other side better than when you went in, because the only real solution is to have the spiritual application in your life. And so I learned through my sponsor and my fellows, and they reminded me every day. By the way, when I wanted to forget, they would set me straight. Because that’s the whole thing, that’s why I liked 12 Step, it’s a we program instead of a me program. You go there every day, and people will remind you you’re getting a little big in your britches, or you’re forgetting to be grateful, or just forgetting how to frame things. But here’s the thing, I mean, today, we have podcasts like this. We have so much available in the form of self help and community, thank goodness, that we can turn to, right? There are great apps, there’s great podcasts. I really believe in protecting the energy between my ears, okay? I loved true crime podcasts my whole life. I still do, but to be honest, I don’t walk around with that in my air pods all day every day anymore. Because well, a) when I became a mom, I became way wimpier. I don’t really love murder anymore, but I have a well told story. I love investigative journalism. But it’s like I only have so much time to put information into my ears. What am I choosing to listen to? The more you can choose to listen to things that remind you to reframe, to have gratitude, to have empathy, to give yourself grace, to ask for help, the better off you’re going to be. Take the time to download the right podcasts, have accountability buddies that share a positive mindset, and do your best to stick with the winners, right? Because you could stick with the kvetches, you could stick with the whiners, but stick with the winners.

Jessica: Right.

T.H.: But they’re going to bring you down. Eventually, they will bring you down and pull you back to the place that you’re trying to move on from.

Jessica: We need a 12 Step program for divorce recovery.

T.H.: Maybe we’re going to create that.

Jamie: I wonder if it exists. I mean, I make no secret of both my coaching or on stage that much of what I talk about comes directly from 12 Step Recovery. I don’t need to reinvent the wheel, it works very well. I’ve just restructured it in ways that help with personal professional development because that blueprint works for me.

Jessica: Right. And so it sounds like, in some ways, that specific recovery for you is what helped you get your shit together in life, in general.

Jamie: Yes. Yeah, there were two things that happened when I got sober. I basically discovered wellness, which happens to a lot of addicts. You’re like, “Oh, I have a lot of time on my hands now that I’m sleeping at night and awake during the day. Who knew?” I started going to places like Barry’s Boot Camp and SoulCycle. I found by the way, in those places, what I had been searching for on the dance floor my whole life—community, shared endorphin rush to a tribal beat. I was like, “Oh my God, this was here the whole time, and I was killing myself on the dance floor at the little Limelight and the Roxy at four in the morning? Who knew?” But I ended up then meeting my husband. We got engaged on a treadmill at Barry’s.

Jessica: Oh my God.

Jamie: Because fitness and recovery—we’re both sober—are the cornerstones of our relationship. We really use that a lot in problem solving together. We use that to help the people that we—we’re both in places of being helpers, and we—

Jessica: How do you use that in problem solving together?

Jamie: Well, first of all, I had always had relationships that were very incendiary. I thought if you were in love that meant you fought hard and then you made up hard. It was a very young way to think about relationships.

T.H.: Yeah.

Jamie: Now, the coolest thing I learned in recovery is just to let other humans be perfectly imperfect humans. We all have character defects. I’m a pain in the ass. He can be a pain in the ass. Hopefully, it’s not on the same day. Hopefully, we can give each other grace. But it changed though not just the way I look at him, but the way I look at my own parents. I was like, oh my God, they’re just fellow travelers. They’re just fellow travelers doing the best they can. It reframed the way I looked at all people, and it gave me a lot more empathy in general.

Jessica: I love just the idea of a lot of what you’re talking about today for people trying to get their shit together after divorce. It really is just a lot about reframing the way that you think about different things. Because you can’t change someone else, there’s only so much you’re really going to be able to change about yourself. But if you can acknowledge where you’ve been, and recognize the new choices that you want to make, and set healthy, decent habits, and do your best to have a positive attitude, which over time, that repeated exercise will actually help you wake up with that more easily, that is a way to get your shit together. Because if you’re walking around with a smile on your face, and you’re happy about things, and you’re able to let things go, and you’re able to navigate and handle situations as they come to you, rather than getting all knotted up inside and letting it stop you in your tracks and stop your day and ruin your day, that’s how you can kind of swim—

T.H.: It’s a practice, honestly. What you’ve done is unbelievable. How you have come out of where you came out of and rebuilt your life and created so much opportunity for yourself, but also in the way of giving to others, also helps you feel good. It always makes you feel better when you do something for somebody else. My dad has that quality. He will literally talk to every and anybody. He’ll be like, “You look great today.” He just totally made her day.

Jessica: Right.

T.H.: You know? It’s the littlest thing. In the end, it makes him feel pretty good. He just made her smile. And so, practicing those things are really, really important. I make a commitment, like what you were saying with your workouts, I must work out every day. It has nothing to do with the way that I look. It’s because of the feeling I get doing it. I don’t even bring my phone into the gym with me anymore. My phone is somewhere else, I am 100% present in what I am doing, and it just fills me up. As soon as you guys get a little taste, I don’t care if it’s a walk, a workout, whatever Jamie is suggesting and can guide you with, whatever that little bit is that you do, you must try it.

Jessica: Yeah.

T.H.: Because it’ll become a healthy—I don’t want to say the word drug, but I feel like I need t

Jessica: A healthy habit.

T.H.: But it is. It’s a healthy habit, but it’s something that you start to look forward to. It’s not something that’s bringing you down, like, “I got to freaking do this today.” I don’t mind waking up at 5:45 to go work out. I mean, I don’t. I really don’t—

Jamie: You get to do it. You don’t have to do it.

T.H.: —because I have the best day afterwards.

Jamie: Yeah.

T.H.: I’m a much nicer person, by the way.

Jamie: For sure. It really is about the reframe. It’s about feeling that you get to do it and not that you have to do it. But at the end of the day, I said this earlier, I’ll just repeat it, we build self esteem by doing esteemable acts. So that just me means I made the commitment to get up and take care of myself with a workout, and I did it. Give yourself that credit. Give yourself that pat on the back. You deserve it. That’s going to put a little coin in your self esteem bank for that day if your self esteem is suffering.

Jessica: Yeah. I love that.

T.H.: Awesome.

Jessica: I love that. Well, thank you so much for all of those great insights because I feel like it was even more than just tips. I mean, it really was very insightful and it’s information that everybody can use in so many avenues of life. So we appreciate that. For everyone listening, if you enjoyed this episode of the Divorce etc…  podcast with the exEXPERTS today, please take a moment to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast. Because when you do that, we get bumped up on the list so more people can find us and listen as they’re going through divorce and beyond. Check the show notes for more info on Jamie, her podcasts plural, and all the coaching services and courses she offers. And of course, share this episode with anyone you know who can benefit from listening. Have a great day.