279: Healing Your Heartbreak (with Tracie Pinnock)

You’re listening to the Vibrant Happy Women podcast, episode number 279. We’re talking today about healing your heartbreak. Stay tuned.

Hi, I'm Jen Riday. This podcast is for women who want to feel more vibrant, happy, aligned, and alive. You'll gain the emotional, physical, and spiritual tools you need to get your sparkle back and ensure that depression, anxiety, and struggle don't rule your life. Welcome to the Vibrant Happy Women Podcast.

Hey my friends. So recently I was teaching a class for the Vibrant Happy Women Club and I happened to ask everyone, “How many of you contemplated getting a divorce at some time during the pandemic?” Every single hand in the class that I could see went up and it cracked me up. And I said, “I was there too. I was this close to getting an apartment so I could have a break from it all.” Not just my spouse but the pressure of the kids and everything that was happening. Well, thankfully that is slowly a phase of life that will be behind us.

But in the meantime, sometimes we still do need to think about what is the next best step for me in my life? What is going to help me be my best self and to be self-actualized and to live as the person I’m meant to be? Many times, in our lives we come to phases where we have to contemplate who do I want in my life? Who do I not want in my life? How do I shift my life and become a new version of myself? How do I grieve leaving behind an old version of myself? And this applies to divorce. This applies to moves. This applies to empty nesting. This applies to setting boundaries with a toxic friendship that you want to end.

When we change things and leave behind a former version of ourselves we need to grieve that. And that’s why this episode is important, healing our heartache. Grieving and healing those things that we leave in the past so that we can move forward and become an even better version of ourselves. So, I think this is a fun interview and an important interview. And I hope you can apply it to your life no matter what types of changes you might be contemplating. Let’s dive in.

Jen: Hi my friends. I’m here with Tracie Pinnock and she is a licensed marriage and family therapist with a virtual private practice where she works with women and couples. She helps women cope with the stress of challenging life transitions like breakups, divorce, dating, remarriage and navigating blended families. She helps couples prepare for their lives together and to address various couples issues. Tracie is particularly passionate about helping women overcome challenges that leave them feeling stuck so that they can pursue their self-defined ideas of happiness.

Tracie, I’m so excited to talk to you today. Welcome to Vibrant Happy Women.

Tracie: Thank you so much for having me

Jen: So, I learned about you from the 3 in 30 Podcast. And she told me I have to have Tracie on the show. So, I’m so happy you agreed to come on today. Let’s dive in first by hearing your story of having a heartbreak that you were able to heal.

Tracie: Yes. So, I am the mother of a six year old and an almost two year old. And so, my six year old, his father and I are no longer together. And that was a very challenging breakup for me because I was about four or five months pregnant at the time. And there were all sorts of circumstances involved that came to light after my son was born. But ultimately I went into a depression during that breakup and I was pregnant at the time. So, then I was particularly concerned about the wellbeing of my child.

During the breakup I was – I think I had graduated with my degree for marriage and family therapy. So, I had a professional lens on what was happening as well as a personal one.

And came to realize that I just really wanted to pull myself out of that depressed state particularly knowing that I was bringing a child into the world and wanting to be able to be a healthy, happy mom. So, I made a deliberate decision to do so. And then when I realized I was kind of on the other side of it, it occurred to me that I might have some tools to provide to other women in their experience from both a professional and a personal perspective.

Jen: That’s really cool. So, you decided to prioritize your happiness and make that decision. So, as you work with other women, I think a lot of times people have this perception they need to stay in a relationship, that’s healthier for the kids. And then I’ve noticed some people come to this point though where they say, “Well, I’m miserable, do I really want my kids to grow up with a miserable parent?” So, what do you say to couples dealing with that decision?

Tracie: Yeah, it’s not an easy one but I absolutely am someone who prioritizes kind of happiness and wellbeing of myself as an individual. And then how that impacts the other people around me. And as a parent, the state that you are in significantly impacts your children. So, this idea of being either an unwell or whether physically, mentally, depressed, sad parent, that impacts your parenting.

And so really if you are thinking about the wellbeing of my children and really my impact on other people around me, so my partner, my coworkers at work, all of those things. Then we really are starting with thinking of ourselves and how we are functioning in the world. And so, this idea of sticking it out for the kids, I definitely think there should really be some reflection as to what is the actual quality of life for everybody in this household based on us staying in this relation or the potential of us separating?

Jen: Yeah. And what has been your experience with couples and the problems happening as a result of so much togetherness during COVID? I’m curious.

Tracie: Yeah. No. COVID has kind of just accelerated all things. So, from a business perspective people are making different changes and moves. I know I went to a fully virtual therapy practice last September and gave up my office which I had been thinking about it but this COVID really accelerated it. So then when you talk about personal things, yeah, everyone is just kind of like getting to see more of each other and the good, the bad and the ugly. And so, we’re having to find ways, really navigate how we deal with one another.

So, if there’s something that’s frustrating or annoying to you about your partner’s behavior, it’s more in your face. You can’t escape it as easily. So now you’re kind of forced to kind of deal with it or start having some real conversations about it in ways that maybe you were able to avoid previously. Because hey, we had time apart and we were out of the house. And now you’re like so maybe we need to talk. So, I think that has led some couples into therapy to be able to talk about things, that they honestly don’t have the tools to talk about on their own just yet.

So yeah, I’ve seen that be a factor on both individual levels of stress and definitely couples levels of stress.

Jen: So, do you help couples decide whether they want to stay together or divorce? And what’s that process like?

Tracie: Yes. I do. And it’s interesting because my degree is marriage and family therapy. So, I think people oftentimes assume that my priority is keeping couples together. And this is definitely an individual therapist perspective. But my priority is to help people make the decisions that feel best to them. And the reality is that with two people in a couple that decisions may be different. One person may get to the point where they’re like, “Yeah, this relationship isn’t for me.” And the other person may still feel that it is.

But this idea as you read in my bio of a self-defined idea of happiness is very – I just think it’s very important because when we are living for someone else’s idea of happiness or what we feel we should be doing, it gets us in a world of trouble. So, I am there as just a guide for helping people, helping couples reflect, think, ask themselves questions about what they want to do with their lives as a couple and individuals.

Jen: Wow, that’s fascinating. I heard recently that our bodies have – I mean I have known this but I heard it again recently, that our bodies have a deep wisdom. And a lot of times when we’re not living in alignment we’ll enter into periods of depression or agitation. Have you kind of noticed anything like that when you’re working with couples as they try to make this decision, the wisdom of listening to the body?

Tracie: Yeah, I mean definitely and you can even take it as far as the ways in which our physical, yes, and mental wellbeing are connected. And people having kind of somatic symptoms or physical symptoms of discontent, or stress, or worry, especially when we talk about stress. We know that stress really impacts the body. And then you also see it behaviorally. So, a couple comes in and both or either partners are just doing certain things that are not conducive to the relationship. And it’s this idea of discontent.

So, we really want to talk about what’s going on there for you that, whatever, you’re being distant or missing dinner and your family has typically been on time when you come together. I mean you name it, there are so many things. But yeah, it is about really exploring what’s at the heart of this. Is this relationship serving both people in the same ways that it used to? Really acknowledging this idea of change, and shift, and transition in life which again COVID I think has really put in our faces. This idea that everything’s not the same forever, things change and shift.

Jen: Yeah, wow, that’s really cool. So, a quick question is kind of coming into my mind. Something I’ve believed wholeheartedly in the past and I still believe it as strongly now but I also recognize sometimes there is an intuitive inner knowing that kind of can be stronger and more important than just the thinking process. But my question is this: In cognitive behavioral therapy they would suggest that our thoughts cause our pain in a relationship. And thinking the thought, he’s a jerk, he’s a jerk, he’s a jerk. He doesn’t care about me, he’s so thoughtless, over and over again make that the reality of the relationship. What are your thoughts on that theory and how does that play out in your work?

Tracie: I think that comes to ultimately perspective taking. I always say perspective is everything, but it definitely is one of those things where it’s like which came first, the chicken or the egg? Am I thinking that he’s a jerk, he’s a jerk and he’s thoughtless because he has done things that have been thoughtless or I have felt that he was being thoughtless and so that’s why I’m thinking this? Or am I going into it assuming that that’s the way it is and based on past experiences just preparing myself for disappointment?

So, it’s that, I use the word, reflective process all the time which is asking ourselves questions. We don’t do enough stopping, and thinking, and asking ourselves about what we are thinking and feeling to really get at the heart of where is this coming from for me? Because yes, we can definitely get ourselves into a mindset of everything he does is wrong. He’s not thinking about me. And you’re just preparing yourself for the disappointment. And I talk with couples all the time about these patterns of interactions that we have between any close relationship.

It becomes like a script, you can kind of predict what the person’s going to say when you say this, or what they’re going to do when you do this because you guys just fall into these patterns. So, then it becomes very easy to filter everything through that lens because this is how typically we go. So obviously when – I don’t know – he didn’t respond to that text message that I sent he just was ignoring me. Where maybe at that time there was a legitimate reason why they missed it. But we just get ourselves into these ways of functioning.

So, perspective definitely matters which is why, so when you think about it from a therapeutic standpoint, when the couple comes in having this outside person kind of interject, bring a fresh set of eyes, and say, “Well, can we talk about what maybe, what other possibilities might have been here when so and so did this or didn’t do this?” Because we can get so stuck in our thought processes and even our past experiences, and it just cycles.

Jen: Yeah. So, there’s work to be done, that’s why people go to therapy to work on those thoughts, and patterns, and cycles. And then there comes this place or point when you’ve done all that work and still it’s not working. So, I’m thinking of Bill and Melinda Gates, they are obviously a high profiled divorce that is happening. And I love, I guess, I love that she cited that the reason is they can’t really grow together in compatible ways for the next version or the next portion of their lives.

And they’ve kind of inspired me to think, yeah, they can’t grow together and they can’t become self-actualized or become the best version of themselves together anymore. So how do you help people navigate doing all that marital work versus deciding, seeing, choosing to realize that I’m not being or becoming the best version of myself here?

Tracie: Yeah. I like to talk about this idea of kind of a happiness versus obligation spectrum. And again, reflecting to find what our own philosophy is. And what I mean is if you think of a spectrum one end to the other and you put on one end, happy, personal individual happiness and however you might define that, whatever that looks like. Some people prefer the word peace, whatever that feel good word is. And on the other end of the spectrum, you put the word obligation. I think we all fall somewhere on this spectrum. And maybe it shifts over time throughout our lifetimes as well.

But we fall somewhere on this spectrum as to how much we adhere to this idea of obligation, doing things out of obligation versus doing them out of a personal sense of happiness and contentment. And so, the example I use is that when you think of relationships, there are people who go to their grave in unhappy marriages and relationships. And there are people who kind of leave at the drop of a dime and there’s all the in between.

So, I have people really think about where they tend to fall on that spectrum just as a person and an individual in their life in various areas. And then also particularly when they think of their relationships. Because if you are farther to the obligation side of that spectrum you are someone who would be more likely to stick with a relationship out of a sense of the kids, or our finances, or everyone knows us to be together. I don’t want to hurt feelings. Any of those things that would keep you obligated to the relationship even though you’re not particularly happy.

And if you fall more towards the okay individual happiness, contentment being, yeah, more self-actualized throughout my life then you may fall more to, okay, as much as this is a hard decision and a tough thing to end things, I know that we’re, you know, I’m not happy and content so I may lean more towards we need to find a way to split. So, I really have people place themselves somewhere on that spectrum as part of this process.

Jen: Wow, that’s tricky. And where do people place themselves? I mean do you ever see patterns?

Tracie: Yeah, I’d say kind of all over the place based on life circumstances and what they’re dealing with. So, for instance a pattern definitely for couples who have younger children. They would tend to be more on the obligation end of things and maybe they look to in the future, split when the children are older. The financial piece is a big one, finances keep people together a lot out of obligation. So, kind of falling to it’s just not a good time for us to be able to split.

And in the world that we live in these days, I think there’s definitely more splitting romantically of couples who still have to stay in the same household for a period of time. So, there’s that. And so, these logistics come into play. So, I guess those are some trends when there’s just younger kids or when there are financial hardships, people may fall more in the obligation side.

Jen: Yeah, wow. So, I have a friend who, it was so interesting, she recently split from her husband who happens to be an alcoholic. Prior to that decision she was in anguish for months just going back and forth, and back and forth, and back and forth. And it was so fascinating to me, she’s not a close friend but I saw her enough to see the change. Once she made that decision it’s like all the light in the world came into her face. It’s like her body relaxed. She became an entirely different person. I can’t tell you. It’s like a burden was released off her shoulders.

And so, I’d love to hear more about what you’ve seen in the before and after of this decision-making process.

Tracie: Yeah, I mean kind of exactly what you just described because again this is that idea of tapping into our personal wellbeing and contentment. And yeah, burdens lifting, unhappy relationships tend to be burdens. They tend to be a weight that we are carrying around. And so, it’s one of those things where the initial decision and process can be very hard. But you’re asking yourself, what is my why? Knowing why you are doing a hard thing is very important to kind of keep you on track.

So, this comes into the idea of healing heartbreak and heartbreak healing, which is a lot of what I do with women which is that process of the breakup and trying to kind of get to feeling better. The program that I’m working on is called From Bitter to Better. So, trying to get from that bitter place to a better place, it’s a hard go. It’s a journey. It’s a process. It’s rocky. It has its ups and downs. But throughout the process you’re asking yourself, why am I doing this? And mind you, of course, people break up for various reasons.

So, the breakup could have been initiated by you. It could have been initiated by someone else. It could have been more mutual. So obviously there are times where somebody might be going through a breakup where they didn’t choose that in the relationship, versus when they did choose to end it. But either way it tends to hurt if it was a significant relationship. It’s this idea of I’m doing the hard stuff now for the end result to be better. And that is, you know, that’s just a big piece of the whole process of releasing that burden. So, it’s an initial burden to be in an unhappy relationship. It's also an initial burden to end an unhappy relationship, but you’re doing it with the idea of hope for the future.

Jen: And tell us more about the grief that can happen after ending a relationship because a lot of us think, “I hate him. It’s going to be great!” I’ve heard that those people grieve the relationship too.

Tracie: Absolutely. I mean so grief, which is a word that we oftentimes tend to associate with death specifically, grief actually applies to any loss, any significant loss. So, we feel grief when we lose a job, a home, a loved one, a relationship, you name it. And we need to mourn. And so, grief is the feeling, mourning is the action. You think about when someone passes away we grieve them. And one of the mourning practices we might do is have a funeral.

So, people absolutely, if there was any significance to the relationship for you in various ways, from an emotional standpoint, again, a logistic standpoint, financially, raising kids with someone, any of these things. When you end a relationship or a relationship ends it’s disruptive to your life and you’re losing, you have multiple losses. You’re not just losing that person as a partner. You’re losing them as a parent figure in the way that they used to be. You might be losing your home. You might have to move. There’s so many things that may shift about your life.

So, you have multiple losses to grieve and it starts with very simply put, feeling your feelings, and doing it in a non-judgmental way because you are going to have multiple emotions going on. It’s not only sadness, or anger, it might be disappointment, it might be shame, you name it. And so, you want to be able to actually identify what those feelings are so that you can tend to each one of them specifically. And you want to do it in a non-judgmental way, meaning we can have a tendency to judge the feelings that we’re having about any given situation and that is completely unhelpful to us.

So, if I’m already feeling crappy, sad, angry etc. about my breakup. It does not help for me to then also put on that feeling shame for feeling that sadness or feeling anger at myself because I’m sad about that he’s a jerk and I left him. None of that is helpful. So, I really try to help people work on just sitting with this is how I’m feeling, this is what it is, emotions. I’m sure plenty of people have heard it’s like riding a wave. You want to flow with the wave rather than try to fight against it because you’re just not going to really win that fight.

So, understanding that emotions come and go, sit with it, say, “This is what I’m feeling right now.” It really helps us to navigate through the challenging emotions in a much smoother way because they’re going to be there. Those yucky challenging feelings are going to be there, better to flow with them rather to try to fight against them and to then judge ourselves through the process.

Jen: Yeah, that’s huge. I love that. I heard a definition of grief a few months ago. And it kind of applies here, but grief is, you need to grieve whenever you’re losing a former version of yourself. Isn’t that a cool definition?

Tracie: Yeah.

Jen: And so, for me recently I had to do exactly what you said. I had to grieve the loss of my pre COVID self because I didn’t know it was in there. But I sent my kids back to school in April and thought it was going to be all hunky-dory and I proceeded to kind of fall apart. My body said I had to grieve. And it was a fascinating thing, it took a couple of weeks of just letting myself feel, and feel, and feel. And I think it was the loss of my former version of myself.

So, when you talk about divorce, there’s so much loss especially if you’ve been together for a decade or two and you have children together, and a home. And how long would you say that grieving process lasts on average?

Tracie: Yeah. That’s always a tough one to answer because it looks different for everyone. And I know that that’s not always a very satisfying answer for people. So, it’s hard to put a time, an official timeframe on it. But the thing that does matter is how we tend to our grief. If we’re not non-judgmentally feeling our feelings.

If we’re not reaching out for support, and resources, and all these various things it is likely to prolong the grieving process and possibly complicate it and go into complicated grief which is when your grief is just lasting. It’s significantly negatively impacting your life for extensive amounts of time. So, the answer is that there’s not a hard firm this amount of time. It’s more about how am I functioning in my day-to-day life through each day, each week, each month? Is it starting to feel a little better over time?

Or am I still very much stuck in the same highly disruptive state as I was six months ago? That sort of thing. It’s really an individualized process of checking in with ourselves along this path, because – I don’t use the word journey or process lightly. It’s not an event. It’s not a today it’s this, tomorrow it’s that. It is an ongoing, I’m climbing up a mountain. Sometimes I’m really doing well, I’m hitting my stride. And other times I’m just sliding down the mountain and I have to pick myself back up. That is what it looks like.

I think about, interestingly enough when we talk about heartbreak. But I think of a heart monitor and how you see the lines kind of jagged up and down. That’s what this healing process looks like.

Jen: A knife, stabbing knife up and down. Well, identity, we have our pre divorce identities. And then what do women do when their whole identity was tied up a certain way, or created around a certain life, and then suddenly here they are single. What’s that process of forging a new identity?

Tracie: It definitely, as scary as I think it can be, it allows opportunity, opportunity to be with myself, and view myself as a human, woman, individual, all the things that I was before being a wife, or a partner, or a mother. And reconnecting with those things and getting to know yourself again. And so then, yeah, how do I do that? I mean it’s multipronged. It’s asking myself questions like what do I like? What do I want?

This conversation of self-care really comes into play here because one thing that I noticed that is for us to all be able to very clear and easily identify for ourselves what counts as self-care for us? I define it as anything that brings you a sense of peace, joy, or excitement. And therefore, it is not one size fits all. It is unique to the individual. It can entail things like taking a nap, getting a mani/pedi, going on a trip, saying no to things. Understand that it encompasses many things that fall in the realm of this brings me peace, joy, or excitement.

I say that to say that moms in particular tend to be people who have the hardest time identifying self-care for themselves because they’re constantly taking care of other people. So, when you think about going through a breakup or a divorce, and now okay, I’m single. Who am I? What do I like? What do I want?

Sometimes it’s just starting there, helping women to tap into that because you need to know the answer to that so that you can engage in those things throughout this process, that help you to come to some sense of peace, joy, or excitement at various parts of this challenging journey. You’re also doing things like if there are career changes you may want to make, or there are financial adjustments, or your kids are growing so you’re parenting in different ways. And what are your childcare needs like? What is your social network?

We’re assessing all of these areas of your life from the perspective of as you said, being single now and then how that looks. So, it’s a lot of asking ourselves questions, sitting down, and asking ourselves what we want. And so, then we can make a plan as to how to get there.

Jen: Yeah. You have to know where you’re going. You have to have a map to get to your destination so that’s cool. It’s funny even if women don’t divorce or they’re not even in a relationship, I think every one of us comes to this place in our mid lives or somewhere, 30s, 40s, 50s, where we question who am I independent, separate from being a wife, or a mother, or an employee? Where did that fun person I used to be in high school go? So that process would be helpful for everybody I think. Yeah.

Let’s say someone’s divorced, they’ve gone through all the grief. They have figured out who they are independent of everyone else and they want to dabble in the dating arena. Oh my gosh, that’s scary, what do they do?

Tracie: But it’s exciting. It’s an exciting phase. So, I break heartbreak healing into three phases, survival phase, maintenance phase and thriving phase. And so, when we were talking about feel your feelings and that part is definitely in the survival phase. You’re just trying to keep it together. Maintenance phase, you have a bit more of a stride, you’ve formed a new routine and you’re again just maintaining things. The thriving phase, yay! You reach there and that’s yeah, where you’re looking. You have hope for the future. You’re looking ahead. You’re like what do I want?

And the dating thing comes up for sure and as scary as it can be it can also be exciting and fun, and there are ways to do it so that you can get the most out of it. That starts getting into me really encouraging women to do the online dating thing and all of that stuff. But ultimately again, this idea of having a roadmap, you want to know what you’re looking for.

So, one exercise that I really like to have women do is very simple and straightforward. I didn’t create it but it’s something that I think people need to be told to do in a very concrete way which is to make what I call an ideal partner list. And you can technically make this list for any aspect of your life, ideal career, ideal finances, whatever it is. But you’re literally just making a list of all of the traits and qualities that you would want in your ideal partner.

So, I set it up as if you had a magic wand and could wave that wand and the ideal person for you appeared, what would be their physical traits, personality traits, life circumstances? And just list, list, list everything you can think of. And it’s a list that you keep handy because you’re going to think of other things along the way and you want to add them. But you start with that list before trying to do any dating because this list you keep in the back of your mind as you’re getting to meet people and know people.

And it becomes a roadmap for really starting to check off what type of time and energy do I give to each person based on what I know is my ideal partner list. And I do a whole exercise where I go through breaking down preferences versus deal breakers and all of these sort of somewhat objective assessments. But ultimately you want to know what you’re looking for so that you can then go out and not just seek it but as you’re meeting people and people are coming into your world, you’re making the best decisions for yourself in terms of how you interact with them.

Jen: That’s neat. And what if, you know, I have a friend who has done the dating thing and she’s liked some of them. And then that dating thing doesn’t work out, more heartbreak. What’s the mindset people need to have about obviously you’re not going to find the right person on the first go. But you can be raw from already the heartache of the divorce, how do you handle that?

Tracie: Yes. I always talk about starting out with realistic expectations. I think of dating as romantic interviewing. So, it’s just like applying to jobs or interviewing candidates for a job, might have to turn in 20 resumés to get five callbacks maybe. You have to go out there and date and talk to multiple people to get, you know, find some that are winners or potential winners for you.

And so going into it more from a perspective of I’m just going to have a good conversation, maybe have a nice meal, discover a new restaurant, have a fun activity because I am acknowledging that I’m not going to find the one on the first shot. So, if I set up my expectations to be that I’m going to have to weed through people just like you would for job candidates. Then I can go into this taking from it a new experience. I always say, “Worst case scenario you have an interesting story to tell about a bad date. Best case scenario, you’ve found the one and there’s everything else in between.”

So really take advantage. So, a lot of the women that I’m working with right now, because it’s spring and summer we’re really leaning into the online dating space, being able to meet new people, be outside, that sort of thing. It’s really the time to go out there and just engage with new people.

Jen: Yeah, sounds fun, and shopping, it’s shopping. We don’t have to be upset if that pretty blue dress didn’t fit us. This is great. Well, what else would you like to share as we kind of wrap up our conversation, any other tips, or things on your heart?

Tracie: Yeah, definitely when it comes to this transition of dealing really with any loss, but heartbreak, breakups is we don’t want to underestimate the importance of social support from other people. And the reality is that not everyone has those built into their life already in a very supportive way. But it is a major part of our healing process, so seeking those relationships out. Maybe we start trying to foster new friendships. Maybe we attend networking events just to meet new people or meet up groups or things like that.

And then utilizing the resources we have. So maybe, definitely going through a breakup that can be a time where people start to lean into current relationships a bit more. Maybe they start sharing a bit more with certain people in their lives, family members or friends because having other people to validate your experience, whether it’s because they’ve gone through it as well or just because they’re a human who can say, “Yes, that hurts. I understand that that would hurt.” That goes a long way.

It’s a very basic human need, the social connection piece. So that is a piece that is a very important part of the process. When you think of the coaching program that I’m putting together, Bitter to Better, that’s one of the reasons why it’s a group program because I want women to be able to connect with other women who are having similar experiences.

Jen: Yes. It’s so important to know we’re not alone, yeah, I love that. Where can people learn more about you and follow you to share more about Bitter to Better?

Tracie: Instagram is definitely the go to which is therapist.tracie and I spell my name T.r.a.c.i.e. And also, people can directly contact me at tracie@tphtherapy.com to get more details about the different things that I’m doing. And tphtherapy.com, that’s my website. I like to post things on Instagram as things are happening. So that’s a good place to kind of stay up-to-date.

Jen: Alright. Well, thank you so much for being on the show, Tracie, this was really eye-opening.

Tracie: You’re very welcome and thank you for having me.

Alright, there’s a lot of food for thought from that interview I believe. And I want to challenge you to instead of feeling confused, to just take a moment to breathe, and meditate, and think, and trust that your body, your soul, your spirit, your heart know exactly what you need to do. The more intuitive we get I feel the easier lives can become.

That’s why so many successful people meditate every day because it calms down all of that busyness in our brains, all of that stress in our central nervous systems so they can hear, and think, and receive from their brains or from a higher power, the best information for the next step in their lives.

I believe we’re here to grow and to become our best selves, to love as much as we can, to have fun, to be as joy filled as we can. And you as the author, the steerer of the ship of your life, the author of the book of your life get to choose your course. You get to choose your destination. You get to choose who will journey with you. So, choose well my friends. This is your wild, and beautiful, and messy, and glorious life.

And I want you to feel amazing as you live it because the more you feel amazing and do what feels right, and aligned, and glorious, and correct, and brilliant the more it gives other women, other people, your children, your friends. The more it gives them permission to do the same. How beautiful would it be if everyone can live in alignment?

I have a friend whose life passion is gardening. And a beautiful opportunity presented itself for her to garden all day long and be paid for it. She first needed to be quiet and clear and have the clarity about what she loves before that opportunity came her way. And so, it is for all choices in our lives, the people we surround ourselves with, the careers we choose, the way we spend our time, it can all be guided from that intuitive heart centered place. So, you can feel amazing about your life, your choices, your influence, and the love that you share.

Thank you so much for listening and if you want help thinking about your life in this new way, living in alignment and listening to your intuition, letting go of those shoulds, join us in the Vibrant Happy Women Club where we are working on this step by step every day, and every week, and every month, making that progress that moves the needle and helps us to live in alignment and show our loved ones how to do the same.

I appreciate you listening, you’re the best, I love you. Make it a great week. Take care.

If you enjoy this podcast, you have to check out the Vibrant Happy Women Club. It’s my monthly group coaching program where we take all this material to the next level and to get you the results that will blow your mind. Join me in the Vibrant Happy Women Club at jenriday.com/join.