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]:
Hi there and welcome back to Intentional Divorce Insights. I am so happy that you are here with us today.
Leah Hadley [00:00:30]:
Welcome.
Leah Hadley [00:00:30]:
We have a wonderful guest and I know that this episode in particular is going to resonate with a lot of our listeners. So I'm really excited to introduce Leah Marie Mazur. She is a certified divorce recovery coach, a speaker, and the founder of Mindfully Ready. As a three time divorce mom, she helps women rebuild self trust, confidence, emotional stability and identity after divorce so they can stop abandoning themselves and become the woman they actually want to be. Through her coaching courses, content and community, Leah is known for her honest, relatable approach to healing boundaries, emotional regulation and personal growth. Welcome Leah. Thank you so much for being here with us today.
Leah Marie Mazur [00:01:14]:
Thank you. I'm so excited to hang out and chat with you today.
Leah Hadley [00:01:17]:
Oh, this is fantastic. So give us a little bit of a story of how you actually got into this as a business.
Leah Marie Mazur [00:01:26]:
Well, after my first divorce, I didn't do anything that I was supposed to do. I didn't. I didn't take the time to really heal or figure out who I was or what I wanted, or even reflect on what I wanted to do differently in the next relationship. I was just like, okay, I'm only getting older. Who's going to want me now with all this baggage? I have a daughter, I'm divorced, and. And I knew I just didn't want to be alone because that didn't feel good. So my primary goal was I need to just get into another relationship. And I see this a lot, you know, with clients too.
Leah Marie Mazur [00:02:03]:
And so I did. I rushed into another relationship. When that one fell apart, I was on that same pattern. I rushed right into another one, got married quickly, and within a couple of years I realized, oh my God, like, I can't believe I'm gonna have to go through this again. So that was really just my ugly wakeup call. It was like, obviously whatever I'm doing isn't working, so if I want different results, I'm going to need to do things differently. And so I dove into all the things, the books, the podcast therapy, journaling, mindfulness meditation, anything I could to just cultivate self awareness to help me understand how I got to the place that I got and so during kind of my own healing journey, I realized there were so many other women, too, that was struggling with this. They would find themselves in these situations and essentially not know how to get out of it and make themselves feel better.
Leah Marie Mazur [00:02:57]:
And so through my own journey, I just collected all these tools and processes and things that helped me. And so I decided to create a business to help support other women, to help them avoid some of the same mistakes I was making, maybe avoid another divorce or two if they can really focus on what's important, you know, after the first one, so that they can rebuild their identity and know who they are and stop shrinking themselves.
Leah Hadley [00:03:18]:
That's fantastic. It's always such a beautiful message when somebody can take their own experience and challenges and really turn it into something beautiful in the world to help other people. So I love the work that you are doing. I know for a lot of our listeners, they really struggle with trusting themselves. And I know this is something that you talk about. Why do so many women lose trust in themselves and during the marriage, but also the divorce?
Leah Marie Mazur [00:03:46]:
We've. We've been conditioned to. You know, women are kind of raised to care for everyone else, you know, to put everyone else first. Our moms did it when we were growing up. Once they became moms, we were always the primary focus, and they kind of put their dreams and opinions and things to the side. And so we're kind of raised like that. And especially in a relationship, if it's not healthy, you know, we're always taking on the emotional weight of the relationship and sometimes the whole family, right? And so it's like all we want to do is keep things going. We want things to work.
Leah Marie Mazur [00:04:22]:
We want it to work out. We want to keep the family dynamic together. We don't want to ruin anything for the kids and all, you know, so we abandon ourselves and we. We start shrinking ourselves. And we don't want to rock the boat. And we aren't setting boundaries. We're saying yes to things we really want to say no to. And slowly we start losing trust in ourselves.
Leah Marie Mazur [00:04:44]:
And so
Leah Marie Mazur [00:04:48]:
a good place to start is through keeping small promises to yourself. So, like, if you've lost trust in yourself once you start doing things like, for example, I want to. I need to start drinking more water. So I'm going to drink two bottles of water tomorrow instead of one bottle of water. So small little promises do it. Follow through. If you're like, I'm going to go for two walks this week instead of one walk this week. Do it.
Leah Marie Mazur [00:05:17]:
Follow through. That self trust is slowly built through that follow through. It's you essentially reinforcing and to yourself that you can be trusted. And another thing too is women are also quick to dismiss their intuition. Like, we're so intuitive and we have these, these messages that come to us, but we've been taught to ignore them or they were wrong, or we're overreacting, or we're too emotional. And so that's also how you slowly lose that self trust, is you start ignoring that inner compass. And so slowly you can start working towards that again. Like when you have that initial response, that initial instinct, listen to it before the fear and the overthinking come in.
Leah Marie Mazur [00:06:06]:
Right. And you kind of talk yourself out of it. It's like, what was that initial feeling that you had about it? Just dive in there and trust it and trust that whatever happens from there after that decision, one of two things are going to happen. Either you're going to get the result that you were hoping for and be stoked about it, or you are maybe not going to get the result you hope for, but you learned something. So. So you're taking wisdom from it, which is going to help you make different choices moving forward.
Leah Hadley [00:06:34]:
Absolutely. And I love that simple example that you shared, Leah, of the water. I was one of these people for most of my life, in all honesty. It's just been in the last few years that I, I've grown up and gotten through this. But where, you know, whether you are making, you know, there's recommendations out there to drink eight cups of water a day or a certain amount times your body weight or whatever, whatever the thing is. Right. But for most of my life, if I didn't hit whatever the big goal was, let's just use the eight cups as an example. Then it was a complete and total failure.
Leah Hadley [00:07:05]:
And there was no point in having the one bottle or the two or whatever that looks like. Right. And I love that you share that example of like, let's just incrementally do like the one walk or the one additional cup of water or whatever that looks like in order to kind of rebuild that. It doesn't have to be this all or nothing. Oh my God, I struggled that so many years. I struggled with.
Leah Marie Mazur [00:07:28]:
Yeah. Because we have these big goals that we want to feel. Feel a certain way. And, and so we want to just like overhaul our whole life.
Leah Hadley [00:07:34]:
Yeah.
Leah Marie Mazur [00:07:35]:
Especially if someone's like, oh, here's the blueprint. Just do all these things. And you're like, okay, great. But that's not sustainable. It's not realistic. Right. It took you a lot of time and conditioning to get to even where you are. You can't expect to just change your whole life overnight.
Leah Hadley [00:07:47]:
Right.
Leah Marie Mazur [00:07:47]:
So that's really the key is like, what are some small things I can start doing? And then slowly you build momentum and then you can add another thing and then add another thing. And those small are what eventually lead to really massive change, like feeling how you want to feel and showing up the way you really want to show up in the world.
Leah Hadley [00:08:07]:
Absolutely. Oh, I preach into the choir, Leah. Absolutely. So you mentioned some of these tools that you kind of develop through your own experiences. I know a lot of people that I'm working with are really just kind of in that emotional survival mode. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about what that kind of looks like, like in the folks that you work with and how they can start to kind of begin regulating their nervous system again.
Leah Marie Mazur [00:08:34]:
Yeah, I love that. And, and this is just a tool that can be used any day, forever, because life, when life is lifing, you're constantly going to be triggered, right. And you're you. So. And you are always responsible for your reaction to everything outside of you. So one of the things I picked up, and I love this, and I do this myself all the time, I'm telling all of my clients about this and it's so simple and it's free. It's called box breathing. You've probably heard of it before.
Leah Marie Mazur [00:09:01]:
I love it because it's something that you can do at any time. And because what happens is if we're triggered or our nervous system is activated, what's really happening is like we're in that fight or flight, right? Our brain is kind of telling us that there's a threat and then we need to be hyper vigilant and prepare for it so that we can avoid being hurt, essentially. So when you're in that activated state, your brain is going to be going wild trying to figure out all of these possible outcomes that could happen so that I could prepare for it and protect myself. So usually your heart rate increases or maybe you feel the palms are sweaty or you get that pit in your stomach or like your shoulders are up to your ears or something. So the fastest way to help regulate yourself is to signal to your brain and body that you're safe, you're okay. And that's what box breathing does. Those long slow exhales signals to your brain and body that you are not in danger and that you can find that grounded place. And so for those of you listening who don't know what box breathing is, there's.
Leah Marie Mazur [00:10:08]:
There's a lot of different formulas. My favorite is, I call it the 5. 5. 5, is just the easiest to remember. It's you take a deep inhale through your nose on a count of five, and then you hold that breath at the top for five seconds, and then release it all five seconds. And you could do that as many times as you want.
Leah Marie Mazur [00:10:27]:
You could do it five times, but that will immediately help you start to regulate yourself again and get to that grounded place. And then from that place, you're going to be way more objective about what the thing is that triggered you so that you can decide, okay, does this even require a response? Or, if I do need to respond to this thing, I'm going to do it in a much more grounded way and have more clarity than just being completely emotionally reactive to whatever that thing was that triggered me.
Leah Hadley [00:11:00]:
It's so amazing how powerful our breath is. That was also something I feel like I learned just in the last five years or so. And, boy, do I wish I had that tool my whole life. I mean, seriously, it can really change things on a dime. And it's such a simple recommendation. It's free. Everybody has access to it. Like, so powerful.
Leah Hadley [00:11:21]:
I love that. That's awesome. So you talk about rebuilding identity after divorce, and I'm curious, Leah, why is rebuilding identity after divorce just as important as healing from the relationship itself?
Leah Marie Mazur [00:11:37]:
Because a lot of us tie our identity to past roles. You know, wife, mother, caretaker, nurse, bookkeeper, cook. You know, like, all the things that we do when we're in a marriage and we're in a family dynamic. And that's still a part of your story, but it's not who you are. Like, mom, that's a role. That's not who you are. Wife, ex wife, ex wife. That's a role.
Leah Marie Mazur [00:12:06]:
It's a label. It's not your identity. So it's important for. For you to start rebuilding that afterwards so that you can connect more deeply with yourself so that you understand yourself more. You. You know what you want, you know what you need. You know how to meet those needs, and you know how to find fulfillment. So part of rebuilding your identity is, you know, no longer attaching yourself to those past roles and thinking about who you want to become, right? Your future focus.
Leah Marie Mazur [00:12:38]:
Where am I going? Who do I want to be? What does that look like? What do I need to do to get there? What do I need to start saying no to so that I can get there. And it's also kind of the fun part of like, like rebuilding after divorce.
Leah Hadley [00:12:53]:
It is. It is.
Leah Marie Mazur [00:12:54]:
You get to decide like, well, who, like, what do I like, right. What hobbies or creative outlets or what do I like to do with my time? What do I want to eat for dinner? What do you know, do. What temperature do I want the thermostat at? What, what kinds of things? Like, you get to make all those decisions now instead of everything being a compromise. And so even through those small things and those little processes, you're learning about yourself and really coming into who you actually are without having to consider anybody else's opinions.
Leah Hadley [00:13:31]:
That is so powerful. I'm curious, what are some of the biggest ways you see women unknowingly abandon themselves in relationships?
Leah Marie Mazur [00:13:41]:
Not setting boundaries. That's a big one. Yeah, A lot of, A lot of us are people pleasers. We don't want to rock the boat. We want to keep the peace. You know, we quiet ourselves, we dim ourselves. We don't want to take up space. And in.
Leah Marie Mazur [00:13:57]:
Or so we think that we're just trying to make things work when really we're shrinking and shrinking and drinking. Right. Abandoning. Because we're not advocating for ourselves. We're not, we're not communicating our needs. We're not even believing that our needs are important. I mean, I've. I've had so many women come to me who were in relationships that weren't even toxic.
Leah Marie Mazur [00:14:18]:
Like there wasn't abuse or cheating or anything like that, but they just knew they were deeply, deeply unhappy. But they felt like that wasn't a valid enough reason to walk away from the relationship. Right. There's not some court level explosion that's happening to validate them and that their unhappiness is enough. And so it's like, where are you saying yes when you really want to say no? Where are you not speaking up when you really have something to say? Right. Those are kind of small ways that you can start learning where you're abandoning yourself and where maybe boundaries need to be implemented and remind yourself that you're important too, and your needs matter too, and you've got to start acting like it.
Leah Hadley [00:15:06]:
I remember I had a client share a story with me. This was several years ago where I want to say they were married something like 30 or 35 years and going through a divorce. And she had been the. The wife was my client, had been unhappy in the marriage for a really, really long time. But, you know, like many People wanted to stay together for the children and wait for the kids to grow up and what have you. And this is what her adult daughter said to her after they got divorced. She said, mom, finally. Because she had witnessed her mom so unhappy for so many years, and while this woman had been holding her family together for what she thought was for the children.
Leah Hadley [00:15:49]:
But in reality, it was like a whole different perspective that she was getting now that they were open to talking about it. It just kind of blew my mind. But it was also a really good reminder of, like, whatever the experience is, everybody's witnessing it, right?
Leah Marie Mazur [00:16:03]:
Yes, that's right. Yeah. I actually just heard this the other day, that we are the first generation to say that we left for the kids, not stayed for the kids, because everyone's like, stay for the kids. The kids. And you're right. I mean, because what is that actually teaching them?
Leah Hadley [00:16:20]:
Right?
Leah Marie Mazur [00:16:21]:
How is that setting a good example of what love looks like?
Leah Hadley [00:16:25]:
Right.
Leah Marie Mazur [00:16:26]:
Or what fulfillment or. Or confidence looks like? Right. Like, I'm so grateful for my divorces because now my daughter truly gets the best version of me. I'm always evolving and growing and healing. But the version of me that she was getting in my marriages wasn't good. I mean, I could fake it, I could pretend, but they know you're just showing up differently. You're making different decisions. Right.
Leah Marie Mazur [00:16:51]:
It's so important that you are leading from the front and. And doing what you would want your kids to do. Would you. Would you want your kids to stay in a relationship they don't want to be in if they're unhappy? No. 99.9% of you would be like, no, I would want them to leave. Right, Exactly. Right. Like, we've got to set the example, because kids model what they see.
Leah Marie Mazur [00:17:15]:
It's not just what we tell them.
Leah Hadley [00:17:17]:
Absolutely. And actually, I think about it in my own case, you know, I. When I went through my divorce, my kids were pretty young. I want to say my youngest was maybe three, and my oldest was like eight to the middle and was somewhere in the middle. But anyway, it was overwhelming when they were going back and forth between our homes at that age, because with a three year old, he was, you know, screaming, and it was just very, very stressful, the tension of that. Right. But looking back on it, and so many women grieve that time that they don't have their kids. Right.
Leah Hadley [00:17:49]:
It's like this empty and it's really hard for a lot of people, really struggle with that space. But looking back on it, I can now see, like, that was so important for me to be able to take care of myself in that time when I didn't have the kids, that I was actually more energized when they were with me because I got those breaks in that time and that space to allow me to be more present with them. So actually it was really a blessing.
Leah Marie Mazur [00:18:12]:
Yes. And I look at it like that too. And I talk about this of course, at first, like, no, no mom has babies thinking that they're only going to see their babies sometimes, right? No one's prepared for that. But that is the realistic aspect of divorce. You're going to lose time with your kids as well. And at first it's horrible. It's sickening. You, you, it's, it's a really difficult, uncomfortable place to be and feeling to have.
Leah Marie Mazur [00:18:38]:
But if you do the work, you get to this place where you're like, see ya, see a Monday. Like, because you learn how to make the most of that time. You learn how to take advantage of it. You learn how to pour into yourself during that time and do the things you don't have time for. Maybe when you do have your kids and you find this balance where just like you said, is that that time becomes sacred and you can really pour into yourself and it's like a reset button. Then you're like rested and rejuvenated and ready to go. So you could be more present and appreciative when your kids are back home with you. It's, you know, because being a single mom, that's no cakewalk, right? It's really hard.
Leah Marie Mazur [00:19:18]:
So it's nice to get breaks and it's okay to like those, right?
Leah Hadley [00:19:24]:
That's funny how we need permission to actually enjoy time to ourselves. But, but if you need the permission, you absolutely have it for sure. Yes. Yes. So what does becoming the new woman within actually look like after divorce? And where should somebody start if they are just feeling confident, completely lost and overwhelmed?
Leah Marie Mazur [00:19:42]:
Becoming a new woman within is about no longer abandoning yourself, rebuilding your identity, rebuilding your self trust, just really knowing who you are and not spiraling anymore. Having control of your emotions and your nervous system and knowing how to regulate yourself. Just having the tools to live a better life and feel good. And you can find me. I'm all over the socials. I'm on the, you know, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube. My handle is at Mindfully Ready. Or you could go to my website, it's www.MindfullyReady.com
Leah Marie Mazur [00:20:12]:
and I actually have a free divorce recovery starter kit for you too if you want to start rebuilding your confidence and gaining some clarity moving forward.
Leah Hadley [00:20:19]:
Oh, that's fantastic. We will be sure to include all of the links to all of those resources in the show notes, so be sure to take a look at that. And as I was preparing for our conversation, Leah, I checked you out on social media and I just want to encourage you all to go check out Leah on social media. She has so many great videos that are just like, talking directly to you, like short clips, but like things that'll make you think, things that'll motivate you, inspire you. And so make sure that you absolutely make sure that you go check her out in her various places. We'll again include all of that in the show notes. But last but not least, Leah, any final words of wisdom that you would like to share with our audience?
Leah Marie Mazur [00:21:05]:
I just want you to know that you're not alone. You know, divorce is so isolating and you often feel like nobody can really understand, understand, but there are women who, who do. There are women who can really understand where you're coming from. And so just reach out, you know, connect. You don't have to do this by yourself. I don't think we're built to be doing this by ourselves. We're supposed to have support. So get it.
Leah Marie Mazur [00:21:28]:
Get the support you need. It'll make a big difference.
Leah Hadley [00:21:31]:
Absolutely. It's amazing how much we invite people into support when things are going well, right? Like celebrate the wedding with me, celebrate the new baby with me, celebrate the graduations and all these wonderful. But we need the support just as much, if not more when we're facing some of these really challenging things. And if you are in a community of people who maybe this isn't a common experience, reach out to somebody like Leah or, you know, make sure that you are building up that network of people to support you because it doesn't have to be this horrible, horrible thing. Yes, it's difficult. Yes, it's challenging, but it doesn't have to be the worst thing ever. And you can actually get support to make it easier on yourself for sure.
Leah Marie Mazur [00:22:15]:
Yeah.
Leah Hadley [00:22:15]:
Leah, again, thank you so much for being with us today, for sharing your wisdom and for our audience. Thank you for being with us and we will see you next week.
Leah Hadley [00:22:24]:
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 diversity decision making in divorce. Until next time, take care and continue to embrace your path with intention.
