In this personal monologue, the speaker recounts the intense emotional turmoil of navigating a divorce while living under the same roof as an ex‑spouse, describing poor sleep, unhealthy eating, and constant catastrophic thinking. She then explains how mindfulness—defined as present‑moment, non‑judgmental awareness of thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations—differs from meditation (which is a practice that can cultivate mindfulness). The speaker outlines the core benefits of mindfulness for divorcees: reduced stress and anxiety, increased self‑awareness, self‑compassion, emotional resilience, and inner peace. She details concrete techniques such as breathing exercises, body‑scan meditations, walking meditation, journaling, gratitude practices, and simple online resources. The talk emphasizes integrating these practices into a structured morning routine, creating a dedicated peaceful corner, and decluttering physical spaces to support mental clarity. Finally, she debunks the myth of multitasking, urging single‑task focus to conserve mental energy. Throughout, she offers encouragement, practical tips, and an invitation for listeners to share what works for them.
Chapters
Going through my divorce was one of the most difficult times of my life. I ate poorly, I slept poorly, I played every single worst-case scenario that you can imagine and mind-looped those 24/7. And I had to live under the same roof as my ex-husband, so imagine the heaviness and the stress, not just from work but also from what was going on at home. But since my divorce, I've learned a lot about mindfulness.. And I think my experience would have been really different if I had had those tools back when I was going through the experience. And there's a lot of discussion around meditation and mindfulness, and there's a difference between mindfulness and meditation. And that is that meditation is mindfulness, but mindfulness is not only meditation. But I looked it up in the dictionary because I wanted to know really what the difference was concretely, and this is what the dictionary said. Mindfulness is the quality and the state of being aware of something. It's a mental state that's achieved when we focus our awareness in the present moment, and we do that while acknowledging our feelings, our thoughts, and our emotions, along with our bodily sensations. And meditation is simply the art of practicing meditation. And there's so many benefits to mindfulness. We can be more present and stay in the moment. It helps to reduce stress and anxiety because we can manage our thoughts much better. We reduce stress because we're not mind-looping anxiety thoughts all the time. It helps to foster a sense of self-awareness so that we can understand our thoughts, our emotions, our feelings better so that we can respond in the right way when we find ourselves in a challenging situation. It helps us to cultivate self-compassion. So we let go of guilt, shame, and all of those burdening feelings, and we're kinder to ourselves, more compassionate, less self-criticism. And it also enhances our emotional resilience so that we can cope more effectively with the roller coaster that life post-divorce can be. But the greatest benefit is that you gain inner peace and emotional stability. So how exactly does mindfulness help? It helps us by keeping us grounded, keeping us in the motion so that we don't ride that rollercoaster of emotions where sometimes we're going to have those really high highs and sometimes those low lows. And sometimes we're going to experience conflicting emotions like anger and joy or grief and relief or fear and just positive anticipation. When we're more mindful, it's a great way to kind of understand what our emotional triggers are so we can take our buttons off the table. And when we take our buttons off the table, we can manage all of our emotions. And the key is staying present in the moment, because when we do that, that's when we get our peace back. When we're not focused on anything that has happened or thinking about what will happen, that's when we get our peace back. And this is going to take time. This is not something that's going to happen overnight, especially if you've got monkey brain, right? Where your monkey brain just kind of goes all over the place. You're not going to go from that to all of a sudden being only in the present. It takes practice. And the quicker and the more we practice that, the more we're going to be able to release the emotions that we're feeling. Because only when you're in the present and you are intentionally experiencing the anger, the guilt, the shame, whatever that emotion is, can you release it. Because as you experience it, you take away its power. You diffuse the energy behind the emotion. And when you do that, it's like the monster goes from here to here. And there are many things that you can do for healing, right? Many practices. You can go to YouTube where you can find meditation practices, mindful practices, breathing practices. You're going to be able to find that there without any problem. All you got to do is a search. You can do body scans where you sit and you let your attention go where the kinks are, where you feel resistance, where you feel things might be tight or where there might be a blockage. And then you just allow yourself to be in the present to be able to release those kinks and those blockages. And when I talk about meditation, sometimes people say, well, I'm not a meditator, I don't know how to do that, I don't have the patience. My mom is like that. She's like, oh, I'm much too grounded for that. But everybody can do a walking meditation, which means just going walking and not using your headphones and just being in the moment, feeling the ground under your feet, feeling the air on your skin, and just pay attention to those things instead of going back into your head and into those anxiety thoughts. But there are also other things that you can do on your own. You can journal. Just the simple act of putting pen to paper and writing out your emotions is a way to let them out. It's a way to release them and let them go. Gratitude practices, whether it's a walking gratitude practice, whether it's noticing those little moments during the day. For example, a cup of tea. I'm always grateful every day that I can have my cup of tea. So there are different things that you can do, not just with the help of the internet, but just things that you can do on your own as well. So how do you integrate all that in your life? The best way that works for me is having a morning routine where I either go for a walk in the morning or I stretch, then I have a little bit of meditation, I read, I have a cup of tea, and that helps me to set up the day in the right way. And that's the one time of the day where I'm able to just be, and I don't worry, and I don't let my head run away from me. And especially, I think, if you're a mom, right, when you have to get the kids ready for school, you have all of those things that you have to do in the morning along with getting yourself ready. Being able to have a morning routine where you devote some time for yourself before anybody else hijacks your time is a great way to set up the day and to give you an opportunity to work through your emotions, your feelings, and whatever your anxieties are, either through journaling, through gratitude, through whatever the case may be. Find what works for you, but give yourself that gift of time in the morning. And we love to multitask, right? And if you haven't heard, multitasking is a myth. The brain doesn't work that way. What you do when you multitask is your brain switches really quickly between the 2 things or 3 things that you're doing. It's no wonder you're exhausted at the end of the day. You're not in the moment paying attention to the one thing so you can do that thing well and then move on to the next. Multitasking doesn't benefit anyone. So try to really focus on one thing at a time. That'll help to clear your mind and keep it from getting bogged down with, you know, trying to switch back and forth between different things. Another thing that you might want to do is set up a peaceful corner in your house. Maybe it's in your bedroom, maybe it's in the basement, wherever you find a room. Maybe set up a meditation station. You can set up a chair so you can read a book in the quiet. Whatever is going to work for you. Maybe find a place where you are going to be able to give yourself the gift of time and the gift of being in the moment. And sometimes decluttering is a quick way to actually get some peace of mind. I know when I work and I have stuff all over my desk, it's like I don't think as well because I have so many other points of attention where my eyes can go and my head can go. So I keep a clean desktop because whatever is in front of me is the one thing that I'm going to focus on. And in a way, that's also mindfulness. So are there areas in your house that cause you anxiety because of the clutter. Streamline, minimize, and see if maybe that's a way that you can get a little bit more peace of mind. So that's it, that's what I wanted to share with you today. I hope that some of these will help you. I hope that you find something that's going to work specifically for you, and if you do, let me know because I would love to hear it. And I'm sure if it benefits you, it'll benefit other people. Until next time.
