Leah Hadley [00:00:01]:
Welcome to Intentional Divorce Insights. I'm Leah Hadley, certified divorce financial analyst, accredited financial counselor, and the founder of Intentional Divorce Solutions. I'll be your guide through the complexities of divorce, finance, and emotional wellness. Join me as we uncover practical tips and empowering insights to help you navigate your divorce with clarity and intention.
Leah Hadley [00:00:24]:
Welcome back to intentional divorce insights. I am really looking forward to our conversation today. I have a special guest, Sara Thornhill. You may see her name, Sarah Webb some places, but she's recently changed her name. And it's Sara Thornhill who is a heartbreak resilience coach, empowering lesbians and queer people to get over their ex and get back to themselves. Certified in NLP, trauma release, and meditation, Sara specializes in healing heartbreak from big breakups and devastating divorce by teaching clients to heal from within and reviving their innate power. Sara teaches pocket sized techniques her clients can use anywhere to process stress and improve daily happiness so they can bring the best versions of themselves to their own lives. As a rape survivor who is divorced twice and having come out of the closet later in life, she understands the upheaval that's possible through big life changes.
Leah Hadley [00:01:24]:
She believes wholeheartedly that healing is our birthright, saying that a life of Thrive is possible for everyone. Thank you so much for being here with us, Sara.
Sara Thornhill [00:01:35]:
Thank you for the warm welcome.
Leah Hadley [00:01:38]:
It's my pleasure. So, Sara, tell me a little bit about your story and kinda how you got into the work that you do.
Sara Thornhill [00:01:47]:
I have been a meditation coach for a while now, and I believe that meditation is one of the many avenues that we can use to gently heal trauma. And I went through the heartbreaking trauma of divorce twice now. And when I was getting divorced from my ex husband and coming out of the closet, it was difficult, especially because we share a child. But I got remarried, and really, I thought this is my person. This is the woman that I'm going to spend the rest of my life with. And that breakup, that divorce was absolutely devastating. And I I looked for someone like me who could help me because, you know, you you can't read the label from the inside of the pickle jar. No matter how many skills you have, it's really good to work with someone who can facilitate, you know, no matter certifications you have.
Sarah Thornhill [00:02:54]:
And so I I look for somebody who would be queer. I can say, you know what? I've done therapy before, and no matter how inclusive a therapist says they are, you can see them squirming when you talk about going in between somebody's legs or you know, it's it's definitely not something that everybody is is super comfortable with when it really comes down to it. And and I couldn't find anybody who specialize in attachment. So I got certified in attachment myself. I used my own meditation tools and leverage them properly and healed very quickly from my second divorce, which was way more devastating than my first one in so many ways, not only emotionally, but but also financially. And so I I shifted my meditation coaching business where I had been serving my clients, helping them with anxiety, and and focus on the acute and very specific anxiety of heartbreak.
Leah Hadley [00:03:53]:
That's so interesting. Now you came out later in life. How has that impacted, your experience and your approach to resilience and healing?
Sara Thornhill [00:04:04]:
Great question. You know, I when I started sleeping with women when I was 18, I said, I don't need to come out to my family. I didn't tell them when I started sleeping with boys. Why should I tell them I'm sleeping with girls? And and so I I really I hid in the closet for all of college and thereafter. And then because my parents are so, difficult to this day, they they continue to try to press their beliefs on me and and and hope that I will pray the gay away. I I decided that, you know, I was just gonna try to marry a man and do the right thing according to them. And when that did not pan out, I got a divorce, came out of the closet. I also got sober in 2019 because because I was using alcohol to flush down that multi man rape that I sustained in 2009.
Sara Thornhill [00:05:09]:
And just I hadn't actually dealt with it. And in order to be able to be intimate with my now ex husband, I I needed the wet blanket of alcohol. And so me being out of the closet was one thing. You know, I I came out to my family when I was 38. I came out to the world when I was 40. Really changed a lot of things internally, externally. And then shifting my business over to serve my community has been challenging and liberating as most things are. Right? As far as the pendulum swings one way, it's going to swing the other way.
Sara Thornhill [00:05:50]:
And so it has been amazing, and it has also been gut wrenching at some times to to read the horrific comments that people hide behind a computer screen and and say Oh. When you're putting yourself out there in the world. But, gosh, the number of women who have told me, Sara, you saved my life makes it all worth it because
Leah Hadley [00:06:15]:
Oh, absolutely.
Sara Thornhill [00:06:16]:
Yeah. It's it's a it's a tough time when you're heartbroken, when you're going through a divorce, when there's children involved or not, when when there's just assets involved, beneficiaries involved, homes, and then your heart. Your heart is broken in in a 1000000 different pieces in so many different ways. And unpacking that takes looking really gently, really compassionately at what caused it.
Leah Hadley [00:06:44]:
What do you see as some of the biggest obstacles for people who are trying to heal from heartbreak?
Sara Thornhill [00:06:51]:
Well, they don't recognize that heartbreak is a trauma, but it's not the first one. So that's a really big obstacle is is allowing people to get that inside knowledge that actually what they're experiencing now in this heartbreak with their romantic partner or ex partner is actually a product of subconscious programming, classical conditioning. It it's a result of attachment styles, they're called, that were formed while our subconscious mind was being molded primarily between the ages of 0 and 7 when we were actually in a meditative state. When we're ages 0 to 2, we're in deep delta brainwaves, which is deep sleep for adults. That's why babies sleep so much. From the ages of 2 to 7, we're in theta brainwaves. That's why kids are so imaginative because they're very impressionable. They have this great sense of play, and theta brainwaves are a stage of sleep as well as hypnosis and deep meditation.
Sara Thornhill [00:08:07]:
And then as we as the prefrontal cortex, this this front part of the forehead that sometimes will have a tension headache will will rub our forehead. As that begins to develop around the age of 7 or 8, it doesn't finish developing until we're 25. You know, we we start to come out of that theta brainwave state and in more into, like, alpha as well as beta, which you and I right now are in beta brainwave states. And most people listening to the podcast are in beta brainwaves. We do slip into alpha a few times a day. That's the first stage of sleep when you're really rousable. You know? And and also, like, if you're showering, washing dishes, driving, anything really subconscious, you might slip into alpha. And and so just teaching people this basis obviously, I I ran through all that very quickly, but it's incredibly complex.
Sara Thornhill [00:09:04]:
This is how we get heart broken because we end up selecting partners who are similar to the insecure attachment we had to our primary caregivers as children. So we're wired subconsciously to essentially date and marry someone who is exactly like our abusive father or our absent and psychotic mother. And we're we're actually attracted to them and in a sympathetic nervous system arousal state, which, you know, even when we're, like, cheering for a game or working out or doing something seemingly positive, it's the same body arousal as when we're in fight or flight, when we're really stressed. It's just the perception that changes. So, yeah, the big hurdle is explaining all that neurosciency, nerdy stuff to someone when they're heartbroken and crying, and that's the last thing that they want to do.
Leah Hadley [00:10:14]:
How does that help somebody really understand how to move forward?
Sara Thornhill [00:10:21]:
Well, when they can understand that as a as a basis, as a baseline that we're essentially meditating for the first chapter of our lives, that gives us a lot of freedom to leverage meditative states, which are very gentle in order to, number 1, figure out what caused the problem. We can actually go back and and essentially hypnotize ourselves very gently. That's what I teach my clients to do is use meditation in a very specific way so that they can access these memories from a bird's eye view because I I call this space between your ears the itty bitty, shitty committee. It's it's saying all kinds of we we have 70,000 to 90,000 thoughts every day, and 80% of them are negative on average. But, really, that itty bitty shitty committee, I hold up a picture to all my clients and say, it's really an itty bitty kiddie committee as in k I d because it was formulated and encoded while we were kids. So So we can use meditative states to gently access those memories from a bird's eye view with a lot of compassion for that little kid, and we can use meditative states to reprogram the way that we automatically think, the way that the subconscious automatically thinks, and thereby repattern the way that we move around in the world, which will actually change our experience. So we do the reprogramming using meditative states. I make custom meditation recordings for my clients so that they can listen to the recording when they're already in a meditative state, like, right as they wake up in the morning, right before bed.
Sara Thornhill [00:12:11]:
And then also during meditative times during the day when they close their eyes and listen to this reprogramming so that we can reprogram these disempowering beliefs. We call them core wounds. So that's why meditation is so amazing, and and my mission is to teach 28,000,000 people to heal trauma.
Leah Hadley [00:12:32]:
Wow. That's a big number.
Sara Thornhill [00:12:33]:
I know. I'm insane. But with the power of technology, the power of going on podcast after podcast, I know that I won't even be able to count one day how many people I've actually influenced in this way.
Leah Hadley [00:12:48]:
That's amazing. How did you first start meditating?
Sara Thornhill [00:12:52]:
Oh, gosh. I did it to relieve stress. I in fact, I I've been a yogi for 20 plus years as a yoga practitioner. I didn't get my certification till during COVID, but I started meditating, you know, years years ago. I just wasn't doing it regularly. I wasn't doing it consistently. And I kept on trying to find the kind of meditation that I would want to do, but I would learn a kind and be like, I don't I would go and do a thing and be like, it just doesn't doesn't do it for me. Finally, I hired a meditation coach, which is why I became a meditation coach.
Sara Thornhill [00:13:30]:
Paid 1,000 of dollars for a personal coach to help teach me how to meditate, and that changed my life. I started learning how to meditate twice a day for a set period of time, 15, 20, 25 minutes. And, man, that just it reduced my stress. My dreams became more vivid, and that trauma started gently going, hi. You haven't dealt with me. So I I used meditative states to sit down and say, okay. Who have I heard from high school or from college or someone that I know on social media who has dealt with trauma? How can I unwind this in a really safe way? And so I I just started plugging away, and and and the the meditation has saved my life. I I know for a fact that at choice times, I wouldn't be here if it weren't for the deep meditative states and the healing that I've been able to release in a really gentle way.
Sara Thornhill [00:14:42]:
You know, I I don't advocate for practices like EMDR or, you know, reliving the trauma for people who have PTSD or complex PTSD. I I just think that there are certain therapeutic measures that are dangerous. And and so meditation is a really gentle way to rewrite the way that we experience life.
Leah Hadley [00:15:12]:
That's so powerful. So what about somebody who's going through contemplating, going through a divorce, and they're feeling very stuck? What do you recommend for them to kinda, you know, find ways to be able to even look to the future and be able to move forward?
Sara Thornhill [00:15:39]:
Gosh. It's so situation specific, but I didn't take my first divorce very lightly. I I did a lot of research because I am research driven myself. I'm a nerd. And I really didn't want to divorce my now ex husband even though I, you know, knew I was hiding in the closet, and I just didn't wanna do that to my daughter. So I was really careful to do a lot of research on whether or not I could make it work because it takes 2 people to make a relationship work and one to ruin it, unfortunately. So that's the first question is, am I dealing with someone who is willing to change with me? And I sadly had to recognize that I was not dealing with anyone who who who wanted to actually grow and change. And and I did a lot of work on my own with my approach, my communication skills.
Sara Thornhill [00:16:44]:
I did some research on what I mentioned earlier attachment. Your attachment style has a lot to do with it. We'll typically date and marry or or have children with people who are similar to an opposite attachment style than we have. And and oftentimes, it will be detrimental because one person is pulling away, the other person is pulling toward, and maybe that pulling toward looks like criticism because they're really wanting to activate. They're wanting to pull the other person towards them even though that doesn't seem logical that you'd be criticizing in order to get closer, but it still is contact of some sort. So, you know, there are so many different ways to research and figure out whether or not this is something that that is worth my time to try, but we can only change ourselves. Right? I tell my clients that all the time. There are 2 things you can control, your thoughts and your actions.
Sara Thornhill [00:17:47]:
You can't control what other people think. You can't control what other people do. And I know that seems logical. We're like, yeah, of course. But a lot of people try to control their stuff and their children. And so, you know, you you've gotta look at your situation and figure out, is this something that I wanna continue to invest in? And and and what's what's the fallout? You know? What whether it's financial, emotional, a lot of people think that they want a divorce, and then when they really start to go through it, gosh, it's just a lot to unpack. You know? Whether it's a common law divorce or an actual legal matrimony with the municipality. Either way, there's a a lot to unwind and emotions get tricky.
Leah Hadley [00:18:39]:
Absolutely. I talk to my clients sometimes about how, you know, when you're going through bed and life changes, a lot of times we have these great markers. Right? Like, when somebody is having a baby, they have a baby shower. Somebody's getting married, they have the ceremony. When somebody passes, we have a memorial service or a funeral or what have you. But when somebody goes through a breakup, or a divorce, there's not necessarily this moment of, like, really stepping aside and recognizing that this huge change has occurred. And a lot of times what I see people doing is, like, closing the blinds and kind of, like, hiding out during this period of time rather than, you know, surrounding themselves with their loved ones and really acknowledging that this is a big change in my life and kind of figuring out what this means next.
Leah Hadley [00:19:32]:
How do you recommend that people kinda work through some of that?
Sara Thornhill [00:19:37]:
Gosh. Yeah. Join a support group of some sort. We have queer hearts break harder on Facebook. Over 2,000 women and queer people are are on that. You know, primarily geared toward lesbians or women loving women. So there are other support groups out there, plenty for heterosexual people, but I was the only one out there for for us. And, I would say that what you describe is true, and it seems like sometimes our friends and family reject us, especially those people in the outskirts.
Sarah Thornhill [00:20:18]:
It's like they think it's contagious.
Sara Thornhill [00:20:21]:
And they're afraid to talk to you about the divorce because they're afraid they're gonna catch it, and they're gonna actually get a divorce. And, of course, that's a sign of what's going on in their relationship, of course. But but sometimes it can be hard because people don't know what to say. You know, how often do you break up with somebody and you're still grieving 3, 6 months later and they say, aren't you over that? Can't you just get over that? And people just don't understand. And they say super crass things, like, the best way to get over somebody is to get under somebody, which is ridiculous, and it's just not true at all. It it might make things way worse and confuse everything in the oxytocin levels and, you know, I I've had clients who were like, I thought I was ready to date, and then I ended up crying in the middle of the date because I really just wanted her. And, yeah, it's it's a big undertaking to heal your heart because it's like I said, it's not that first heartbreak. There's so many things that have occurred in childhood and adolescence and adulthood that are really playing into the current scenario.
Leah Hadley [00:21:37]:
Right. Yeah. It's so important to really acknowledge all of that that's coming through for sure. So you really have dug into supporting a marginalized community, especially in this space. How how is that different from supporting, heteronormative, individuals?
Sara Thornhill [00:22:00]:
Very different. Lesbian relationships are different. You know, female and female relationships are different. We love harder and faster, and and we are just it's just a different it's a different feeling in every single way. There's a a joke in our community that lesbians bring a U Haul on the second date, and and that's just simple biology. Right? We have people who have more estrogen. I don't wanna say anything about anyone who's born a certain way or or has, changed their gender marker, but people who have more estrogen are more prone to nesting. And so we're going to be more likely to, stay at home and want to be together.
Sara Thornhill [00:22:48]:
It's why all the gay bars are popping. The the gay men bars and the lesbian bars shut down. It's a thing. I mean, you can look up. There's article after article about how lesbian bars really can't be sustained because they go to the bar to get together, and then they don't come back.
Leah Hadley [00:23:06]:
That's so interesting. I never heard that before. Yeah. Well, Sara, I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me today. I know that you have a wonderful free resource that's available for people. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Sara Thornhill [00:23:23]:
Absolutely. Find me on my website, sarahwebsays.com. That's sarahwebsays.com. We have a free webinar you can watch if you're looking to get over your ex and get back to yourself. I also have a budding YouTube channel. Most of the videos are actually hidden because we have free events on Friday nights, and we send out the replays from time to time so that people can join even if they can't come. But Friday Friday nights were a tough night when we're broken up, so we have our community events on Friday nights at 8 PM EST, 5 PM Pacific. So, yeah, check us out at sarawebbsays.com, and you can find lots of free resources.
Sara Thornhill [00:24:13]:
We do individual coaching as well as group coaching, and we've got another one starting soon.
Leah Hadley [00:24:21]:
Fantastic. And we will also include a link to the Facebook group that you mentioned as well in the show notes so you can find Sarah in all of these different places. If you're needing support, she's absolutely out there for you. And, again, thank you so much for your time today, Sarah.
Sara Thornhill [00:24:37]:
Thank you.
Leah Hadley [00:24:39]:
And for our audience, we will see you next week.
Leah Hadley [00:24:42]:
Thank you for joining me on Intentional Divorce Insights. It's a privilege to share this time with you. I hope each episode offers valuable guidance to navigate your journey. If you find our content helpful, please leave a review to help others discover the benefits of intentional decision making in divorce. Until next time, take care and continue to embrace your path with intention.
