I used to be that woman.

After my separation, I fell into one of the darkest periods of my life. I cried constantly. I lived with anxiety from a divorce process that was not just stressful, but genuinely scary. I didn’t know where I was going to live. I didn’t know what my life would look like in a month. I had no certainty, no agency, and no sense that things were within my control.

That uncertainty didn’t just affect my mood; it affected my health. My anxiety and depression were higher than they had ever been. And looking back, it makes complete sense. This wasn’t abstract fear. It was a real threat to my safety. I didn’t feel safe. And that lack of safety stayed with me for two full years, until the papers were finally signed and I could begin rebuilding my life from scratch.

During those two years, I desperately needed relief from that feeling of powerlessness.

I’m someone who turns to learning when life falls apart. I read. I listen to podcasts. I research. Knowledge gives me a sense of control when everything else feels unmanageable. So it was almost inevitable that I would end up in the world of popular spiritual self-help.

That’s how I found The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle.

At the time, it felt incredibly comforting. It helped me look at my uncertainty from a different angle. It taught me how to sit with not knowing, how to breathe through fear, how to feel a sense of peace even when my external world was collapsing. I listened to the audiobook. Then I bought the physical copy. I highlighted passionately.

I went on to read A New Earth too. I carried it with me everywhere. I remember feeling lost, opening it to a random page, rereading passages, and feeling calmer about the fact that I had no idea what my life would look like in a few months.

I was that woman.
And in many ways, I still am.

But a few years later, after my divorce was finalized and my life had stabilized, something started to feel off.

Why these books feel so good — at first

There aren’t many critical reviews of these books. Most are glowing. Life-changing. Transformational.

There’s a reason for that.

They offer something incredibly seductive when your life feels out of control: the idea of total inner control.
They suggest that no matter what’s happening in your external world: your ex, the legal system, money, housing, you can feel peaceful if you simply change your perspective.

For a woman who feels powerless, that promise is intoxicating.

I’m no longer in crisis. I’m now helping women navigate divorce and separation with more agency and intentionality, and I’m often looking for books I can genuinely recommend in my newsletter — things that might actually help.

The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer kept coming up. It was recommended everywhere. I added it to my Libby holds list, and when it finally became available, I started listening.

At first, I was hooked.

The opening chapters lean on familiar psychological ideas: noticing thoughts, detachment from your inner critic, notice the stories you tell yourself, and slowing down before reacting. The tone is soothing. Reassuring. You keep listening because you’re waiting for the promise to fully unfold.

And then something shifts.

When psychology turns into pseudoscience

And then the book abruptly moves somewhere else entirely.

Singer begins framing psychological protection itself as the problem — something to be dismantled rather than understood. He describes the psyche as a collection of “soft spots” and argues that growth requires exposing them fully, even if it hurts. Protection, in this framing, is not wisdom or adaptation but an obstacle to freedom.

At one point, he writes about the “deep innate tendency to close, especially around your soft spots,” and suggests that once you close, you’re sentenced to a lifetime of exhausting self-defense. His proposed alternative is to watch the part of you that tries to protect itself — and then decide to stop doing that altogether. To “get rid of” the scared part. To let life hit you where it hurts, again and again, until nothing inside you flinches anymore.

On the surface, this sounds liberating. Who wouldn’t want to stop living in self-protection?

But for women starting over after divorce, this framing is not neutral.

Those “soft spots” are not abstract sensitivities. They are learned responses to real harm: legal threats, financial instability, emotional manipulation, custody battles, years of being overridden or made smaller. What the book calls “closing” is often a nervous system doing exactly what it evolved to do: keeping someone alive, functional, and sane in an unsafe environment.

In a later interview, Singer uses a metaphor that many people find especially compelling. He compares emotional wounds to thorns stuck in your arm: painful, irritating, and constantly being brushed against. Instead of building elaborate defenses around the thorn, he suggests, why not just pick them out, one by one?

It’s a beautiful image. You can almost feel the relief.

But for many women, those “thorns” are not just wounds; they’re memory, discernment, and hard-earned pattern recognition. Removing them without rebuilding power, boundaries, and safety doesn’t create freedom. It creates exposure. It sets the stage to be hurt in the same ways again, only this time with fewer internal alarms.

Those thorns aren’t pleasant to live with. But they are essential. They are intelligence.

And healing, for women, is often not about removing them, but learning when to protect them, when to tend them, and when it’s finally safe to let them go.

The problem with “just let it go”

These books are usually written by very privileged men, often white, cis, older men, with social, financial, and domestic safety nets already in place. Their struggle is an overgrown ego. Dissolving the ego brings relief.

But women after divorce usually have the opposite problem.

They have spent years shrinking themselves. Caretaking. Making others comfortable. Putting their needs last. Losing access to money, safety, or voice.

For these women, messages like surrender, let it go, don’t identify with your story, don’t liberate — they pacify.

At its core, this kind of spiritual language carries a clear message:
You are the problem.
Your pain is internal. Your anger is the source of your suffering. Your discomfort means you haven’t evolved far enough yet.

Freedom, it suggests, is always available inside you — if only you stop listening to anger, stop resisting, stop protecting yourself.

But for women living inside patriarchy, this framing collapses under scrutiny.

Much of women’s pain is not generated by the psyche; it is produced by structure. By economic dependence, legal vulnerability, unpaid labor, social punishment for dissent, and the constant requirement to be agreeable, flexible, and self-erasing. In that context, anger is not a flaw or an attachment — it is the body’s alarm system. It is information. It signals boundary violation, injustice, and risk. It needs to be listened to.

When spiritual frameworks treat anger as something to transcend rather than understand, they don’t create freedom. They create compliance. They ask women to override the very signals that protect them, and doing so conveniently benefits the same systems and people that caused the harm in the first place.

This isn’t just a personal risk. It’s a collective one.

When women are taught to locate suffering exclusively inside themselves, structural violence disappears from view. Power goes unnamed. Accountability evaporates. What remains is a polished, soothing language that feels compassionate, while quietly reinforcing the conditions that keep women unsafe, exhausted, and silent.

Why criticism feels so hard

Part of what makes this so confusing is that these books mix genuinely helpful tools with ideas that blame you for any pain that remains:

If you don’t resonate, you’re in your ego.
If you critique, you’re not ready.
If you’re disturbed, you’re attached.

When I looked for critical reviews, I found almost none. Amazon reviews were 98% positive. TikTok was full of people calling these books life-changing.

That kind of consensus can feel gaslighting, like the problem must be you.

But the truth is simpler, and far more structural.

Women aren’t naïve or weak for being drawn to these books. They’re the primary audience for self-help in the first place. Especially women in their 30s, 40s, and 50s, who are often navigating divorce, caregiving, financial uncertainty, and identity rupture all at once. They are the ones who actually read these books, listen to the audiobooks, highlight passages, and genuinely try to apply the teachings to their lives.

They’re also the ones most vulnerable to the harm these frameworks can cause.

Meanwhile, the people who might theoretically benefit most from ego-dissolving philosophies, older men with social, financial, and institutional power, rarely imagine picking up these books at all. They are not the ones being asked to surrender, soften, or dissolve their sense of self.

What actually helps instead

I now recommend books written by women, grounded in psychology and feminism, like Patriarchy Stress Disorder and It’s Not Always Depression.

These books don’t tell women to dissolve themselves. They help women build themselves.

They validate anger as information — not ego.
They encourage turning toward emotions, not bypassing them.
They focus on boundaries, safety, authenticity, and power.

Instead of “just let it go,” they say:
Feel it fully, so you can act clearly.

Instead of “you are not your story,” they say:
Your story matters, and understanding it helps you stop repeating it.

Divorced women don’t need enlightenment. They need safety. Voice. Legal literacy. Financial clarity. Community. Nervous system regulation. Power. Joy and Pleasure.

A final note

You don’t need to throw these books in the trash.
You don’t need to hate them.
They helped me too.

You can keep the tools that supported you, and refuse the parts that erase your reality.

You are not less spiritual for wanting peace and power.
Presence and protection.
Inner calm and external safety.

Sometimes, the most grounded thing a woman can do is not let it go —
but hold on to herself.

This week, I’ve transitioned from Full-Time Mom Mode to 20% Mom Mode. I’m half joking because we moms are always 100% moms. But the arrangement I have with my ex-husband isn’t a simple custody split. Since he lives far from us, I have sole custody two-thirds of the year, and when he visits, we split the time 80/20, so I get to experience the “20% Mom Mode” during a third of the year. It’s interesting how different those two “modes” feel. Different pace, different headspace, different person almost. It’s one of those strange gifts/curses of divorce. Reply and tell me your custody arrangement, and how it is working for you.

One Story + Video

There's a specific pattern I keep noticing in how male entitlement shows up in conversation. It doesn't always arrive in an obvious way. More often, it sounds almost reasonable: well-spoken, logical, even vulnerable. It might be the most dangerous type of entitlement because it makes you doubt whether you are the problem.

What started with a TikTok video that made me uncomfortable ended with a full analysis of that “reasonable entitlement” fallacy and how it can creep in without you even noticing. Since I’m not the only one exposing him, he deleted his whole account, and the original video is unavailable.

As women, we tend to dismiss the uneasiness we feel in our bodies and rationalize it, but sometimes our most primal instincts are the most accurate.

So I broke down this man’s video and translated it to expose the twisted and disturbing assumptions this man (and many more) clearly holds.

Read the full story on Medium (my first article on the prestigious publication “Forth Wave”):

“At a Certain Point You Get Tired of Putting Coins in the Slot Machine”

Male entitlement can sound reasonable at first

And make sure you watch my video reply here:

One Recommendation:

Jennie Young wrote an article on an adjacent topic: "The ick" is a sudden, visceral feeling of disgust or repulsion towards a romantic partner. It often turns previously felt attraction into an immediate "turn-off," typically triggered by a seemingly minor or trivial habit, quirk, or awkward behavior.

In her article, Jennie writes about replacing it with the ICK — Intensely Consequential Knowledge. The argument: what gets dismissed as women being picky or irrational is actually deep, ancient intuition doing exactly what it should. Not frivolous. Not capricious. Consequential.

It pairs well with what I wrote this week. Both are really about the same thing: women’s perceptions being reframed as the problem, when they’re actually the most reliable source of information.

Burned Haystack

The Ick Needs a Re-Brand. I'm About to Do It.

Image credit Creative Commons…

Read more

18 days ago · 454 likes · 317 comments · Jennie Young

That’s it from me this week. I’m off to watch the dozens of other video responses this man’s video provoked. I guess I’m fully invested now lol.

Talk soon, Mashav

Read Last Editions:

Last week, I wrote about why more women are starting to use AI not as a productivity tool, but as a mirror: a way to think out loud, surface patterns, and name things they’re lacking the words to express.

https://pub.aimind.so/women-are-using-ai-for-self-reflection-we-just-dont-talk-about-it-yet-971cb875a277

This piece is the practical follow-through.

I don’t think we need more copy-paste prompts-listicles to “solve our lives”.
They won’t.

But most people have never been shown how to use a conversational AI for self-reflection at all. Once you see a few examples, it becomes more natural. You stop asking it to perform tasks and start asking it to reflect back what you already know but can’t quite organize.

These prompts are starting points. You can tweak the wording, argue with the answers, or take them in a completely different direction. What matters isn’t the exact phrasing; it’s the stance you take: curious, honest, and willing to be seen.

How to Use These Prompts

Before you copy anything, do this first:

• Give context, not bullet points.
  Start the chat by describing your real life: recent changes, work, kids, money stress, energy levels, what feels stuck or tender right now.

• Ask it to look for patterns.
  Follow up with questions like: “What patterns do you notice?” or “Where do you see contradictions in what I’m saying?”

• Pay attention to resistance.
  If a line irritates you, feels uncomfortable, or oddly accurate — pause there. That’s usually the work.

• Stay in conversation.
  You can say: “That’s not quite it,” “Go deeper,” or “Try again with less reassurance and more honesty.”

Think of this as a dialogue, not a download.

1. Know me before you guide me (the setup prompt)

Prompt:
“What are ten context questions for me to answer so that you can help me design my next chapter in life

How to use it:
1. Answer the questions it gives you in full sentences, like you’re catching up with a friend who knows your whole backstory. Voice dictation can help and make this part easier.
2. Then say, “Using all of this, help me with…” and plug in any of the prompts below so the answers stay anchored in your real life.

Why this works:
It flips the dynamic. You’re not asking for advice yet; you’re setting the stage so the reflections stay grounded in your reality.

2. What I actually want (beneath conditioning)

Prompt:
“Reveal to me what I actually want, not what I think I might want. Strip away the conditioning, the overthinking, the survival strategies, and tell me the unfiltered truth.”

How to use it:
Before you ask, describe what you say you want right now (e.g., “stability, peace, a flexible job”) and where it feels incomplete.

Why this works:
It surfaces conditioning, survival strategies, and inherited goals without shaming them.

3. The values I live by

Prompt:
“Based on my patterns, not my intentions — what 3–5 core values do I actually live by, over and over again, even when I’m not trying to? Reveal the values I’m loyal to, whether I admit it or not.”

How to use it:
1. Start by finding your perceived core values. If you want some help with that, I created a 5-minute exercise to guide you through this process, and you can download it for free here.

2. After using the base prompt, insert the 3–5 values you came up with initially, then ask for a comparison and why they are different.

Why this works:
This often reveals uncomfortable truths and a lot of clarity.

4. Strengths I underestimate

Prompt:
“What strengths do I likely downplay or overlook because they come easily to me or don’t look impressive on paper? How could I use them more intentionally for my work and relationships?”

Why this works:
Many women discount precisely what makes them effective.

5. Where I’m still living as a background character

Prompt:
“Where do I still make myself smaller, quieter, or more accommodating than I need to be? Script specific lines or actions I could take this week to act from ‘main character’ energy.”

Why this works:
It turns insight into a concrete behavioral shift.

6. Self-sabotage as protection

Prompt:
“What unconscious patterns do I keep running that sabotage my goals, and what might they be trying to protect me from? What’s one small experiment I could try this week to interrupt just one of them?”

How to use it:
You can ask it to name the protection: “What pain, risk, or feeling might this pattern be shielding me from?”

Why this works:
It reframes avoidance as information, not failure.

7. The five-year mirror

Prompt:
“Write two versions of my life five years from now based on what you know about me. First: the best-case scenario if I follow through on what matters most. Second: the worst-case scenario if I keep avoiding or circling the same loops.

How to use it:
1. You can add: “What is one small decision I could make this week to move toward the best-case version?”

2. After reading both futures, ask: “What differences between these two versions are entirely within my control this year?”

Why this works:
It creates urgency without panic.

8. The objections that run the show

Prompt:
“What are the top 3–5 objections I keep coming up with, consciously or not, that get in the way of doing the hard, necessary work to bring this next chapter to life? For each one, unpack what it’s really about and offer a concrete, compassionate way to work with that resistance instead of letting it run the show. Label which ones are fear-based, logistical, or identity-based.”

How to use it:
List your usual reasons for not starting: time, money, kids, age, confidence, “not ready yet.”

Why this works:
Naming the category changes how you work with resistance.

9. Turning limitations into design constraints

Prompt:
“Based on what you know about my life, responsibilities, energy patterns, and emotional cycles, what are the real limitations I’m working with right now, in a clear, grounded way? Then, how could I reframe or leverage each one into an asset, building a version of success that works because of these constraints, not in spite of them?”

How to use it:
Be brutally specific about your constraints: custody schedules, health, debt, work hours, support system.

Why this works:
This is where creativity usually unlocks.

10. Naming the chapter I’m in

Prompt:
“Based on everything you know about my values, desires, patterns, strengths, fears, and goals — give this next chapter of my life: (1) a title (like a book or film name), (2) a short tagline, (3) a one-sentence plot summary, and (4) the central internal shift I need to make to become the main character.”

How to use it:
1. Run this after you’ve done at least a few of the earlier prompts so it has richer material to work with.
2. Use the title or tagline as your lock-screen, journal title, or calendar name for the rest of the month so the chapter you’re writing stays front and center.

Why this works:
Humans move differently when they can name the story they’re in.

See the full arc

When you line these questions up, they stop being “fun prompts” and start to feel like a real revolution. The first ones pull you into honesty about what you really want and what you actually value, instead of what looks good on paper. The next set holds a mirror up to your patterns: where you shrink, self-sabotage, or hide behind objections, and treats them as protectors to understand, not enemies to crush. The final prompts zoom out to show you the wider arc: the five-year future you are writing toward, the constraints you’re designing within, and the title of the chapter you’re stepping into now. Used in order, they become less like ten separate chats and more like a single, unfolding conversation with yourself about who you’re becoming and what you’re done apologizing for.

Whether you’re new here or have been reading since the beginning, I thought it was time to introduce myself properly and put into plain words what my mission is.

Hi! I’m Mashav

I know what it’s like to start over.

After my decade-long relationship ended, I found myself alone in a new city, my business closed, raising a little one, and facing financial uncertainty for the first time in my life. Everything I had built just... shattered. Like so many women, I’ve had to rebuild from the ground up, using every tool I’d learned over the years, trying to grow in the direction of a life that actually felt like mine.

What I’ve learned after four years (and 40 editions) is that rebuilding after divorce is one of the most disorienting experiences a person can go through. It’s hard because you’re navigating completely unfamiliar territory without a map. Everything hits at once: identity, money, parenting, career, relationships, health. Topics that would each take years to navigate on their own, suddenly all demanding your attention at the same time, in a life that no longer looks familiar.

It’s not just “a lot to deal with.” It’s that you’re trying to move through completely unfamiliar territory without a map.

That’s what I’ve been trying to build here for 40 weeks. Not a coaching program or generic advice. Not a five-step plan. A map. Something that helps you see where you are, what kind of terrain you’re in, which moves are actually available to you right now, and which ones can wait. When you have a map, you’re not paralyzed. You don’t have to have it all figured out to take the next step. You just have to know roughly where you are.

That’s what I’m here for. And if you want to know more about who I am and why I built this, you can read the full story here.

One Podcast

The most common financial question I get from women after divorce isn’t about budgeting. It’s simpler and scarier than that: how do I actually support myself now?

In this episode I get honest about the income question I get asked more than almost any other, and why I think the advice most women get about earning more is missing the real problem entirely.

I share what I got wrong in my own post-divorce income panic, how I accidentally stumbled into an income stream that changed everything, and what I think is actually blocking most women from earning what they’re capable of.

One Recommendation:

At the end of this episode above, I mentioned I was working on something more practical to help come up with ways to increase your income after divorce.
I decided to share it with you, even though it’s still being refined, and I’d love to know what you think before I put it out there for everyone to use.

It’s called the Income Path Finder: a decision-tree tool that helps you find realistic ways to increase your income during or after divorce, based on your actual life. It adapts to your schedule, your family situation, your current energy and bandwidth, your skills and strengths, and gives you a short list of options that might actually fit, with a first next step for each.

Try it and tell me what you think. Your feedback will help me make it better.

→ [Try the Income Path Finder here]

40 editions. Still building. Still figuring it out alongside you.

Talk soon, Mashav

Read Last Editions:

In this episode, Mashav gets honest about the income question she gets asked more than almost any other, and why she can’t give a simple answer. Four years after her own separation, her income situation still isn’t “fixed”. And she thinks the advice most women get about earning more is missing the real problem entirely.

What she shares instead: what she got wrong in her own post-divorce income panic, how she accidentally stumbled into an income stream that changed everything, and what she thinks is actually blocking most women from earning what they’re capable of.

This episode won’t give you a five-step income plan. It will change how you think about the question.

Topics Covered

• Why the income question is really a fear question

• The moves women make from panic, and why they backfire

• Why Mashav lasted only three days in a restaurant office job

• The identity she had to grieve before anything could open up

• How she stumbled onto an income stream by following curiosity

• From pennies to $100K

• What the book “How to Overcome Underearning” reframed for her

• Why the income path probably won’t come from sitting down and figuring it out

• What’s coming next: a framework built specifically for women in this transition

Resources Mentioned

From Panic to Power Your monthly survival number, a clear financial snapshot, and a concrete next step in 15 minutes. For women navigating divorce or separation.

Overcoming Underearning by Barbara Stanny: A Five-Step Plan to a Richer Life (watch my VIDEO review)

💌 Stay Connected

• 🗞 New Me Weekly: Stay connected with reflections, stories, and rebuild tools

• Instagram: @hellonewme.official

• TikTok: @hellonew.me

• YouTube: Hello New Me Channel

Chapters:

00:00 Welcome Back Update

01:20 Divorce Money Panic

01:54 Job Hunt Reality Check

03:07 Money Means Stability

04:13 Stop Forcing Solutions

05:00 Letting Go of Chef Identity

06:12 Accidental Amazon Breakthrough

07:54 Luck, Timing, and Skills

10:40 Orientation Phase Takeaway

The video was about Stage 0: that phase before you’ve made any decision, when you’re still inside the relationship but something feels off. My main point was simple: stop asking yourself if it’s bad enough to leave. Ask if it’s good enough to stay.

The comment pushed back. You can read it in this screenshot:

I read it a few times. I could feel the hurt underneath it. Maybe someone who had probably been on the receiving end of a partner leaving during a hard time. Maybe someone who had to take care of a depressed partner, defending their own decisions about staying. That’s real pain and I don’t dismiss it.

But something in the framing bothered me. And I’ve been trying to understand why.

The whole comment assumes that the responsibility for holding the relationship together in times of crisis lies on the supporting partner. It lists everything the staying partner should do: investigate, manage, find other outlets, give more… without once asking what the struggling partner owes in return.

And that’s where I have to disagree.

Yes, depression is real. Yes, people need support when they’re unwell. Yes, relationships are meant to carry each other through hard times. I believe all of that.

But having a supportive partner is not a right, it’s a privilege. And when someone takes privileges without the attached accountability, it becomes entitlement.

Nobody is owed another person’s complete dedication simply because they are suffering. A real partner, even a struggling one, doesn’t want to pull their partner down into their darkness and call it love. They want their partner to be okay too. That instinct, the wanting the other person to be well, is part of what makes someone worth staying for.

And honestly, the comment was responding to something I didn’t even talk about in this video. I wasn’t talking about a struggling partner, and whether he’s unkind or asks too much or doesn’t give back. I was talking about your own first-hand experience inside the relationship. Things like:

Do you feel like yourself around him, or like an edited version of yourself?

Do you bring things up freely, or do you already know how it’ll land so you don’t bother?

Are you constantly adjusting your words, your reactions, even your facial expressions just to keep the peace?

Those aren’t accusations. They’re internal signals. And they matter regardless of whether the other person is struggling or thriving or somewhere in between.

The question I always come back to is this: would you intentionally choose this life for yourself, as it is right now, not for what it used to be, not for what it might one day become, but exactly as it is today?

One Story:

This week, I also published a piece on Medium that connects to all of this. It started from a thread I posted about male entitlement and the reaction it got: furious, predictable, and still somehow revealing.

The comment on my video and the responses to that thread are versions of the same thing: the assumption that women owe a certain kind of availability, and that naming their own experience is somehow an attack on men.

→ Is It Moms’ Fault That Boys Grow Up to Be Entitled?

One Recommendation:

I just read an interesting essay by Jenae Green, When You’ve Outgrown Your Old Life But Haven’t Met Your New One Yet on Substack. A lot of it resonates. I’m in my own version of the in-between right now, building something I can’t fully see yet, and I’ve made peace with not knowing exactly where it lands. There’s a part about discipline and having to wake up at 6am to do the work. I’m definitely not in the early morning club, and I think rest and not having to be productive all the time are part of the work too. But this part stopped me:

That’s it from me this week. Still catching up, still healing, I hope to bring a new podcast episode soon when I’m feeling better.

Talk soon, Mashav

Read Last Editions:

Listen to the podcast episode:

Here’s the part of decision-making after divorce that surprised me.

At first, it feels empowering. Steady.

And then you start noticing the reactions, the questions, the opinions. The discomfort that wasn’t there before.

That’s usually when things start to feel tense.

In my last piece, I wrote about the fear that shows up before decisions: the overwhelm, the doubt, the paralysis that hits when you suddenly have to choose alone after years of shared decision-making:

This is what comes next.

What happens after you start trusting yourself, and the world around you hasn’t quite caught up yet.

Subscribe now

When Your Growth Makes Other People Uneasy

Separation and divorce don’t just change your marital situation.
It changes your identity.

The decisions you make afterward are often rooted in your new values, ones that reflect who you’re becoming, not who you used to be (hopefully!).

And that shift doesn’t go unnoticed.

Family members notice.
Friends notice.
Colleagues notice.

Even when they mean well, they may react with concern, unsolicited advice, or subtle pressure to “be more like yourself again,” meaning the version of you they were comfortable with.

If you’re not careful here, this is where many women slip back into old patterns:

• People-pleasing

• Over-explaining

• Seeking reassurance after the fact

• Doubting themselves

This happens because approval once felt like safety. So it’s the default, the familiar.

Needing Approval Even More

After separation, the need for validation often spikes.

You’re emotionally exposed.
Your main relationship is gone.
The ground beneath you feels less stable.

So your nervous system looks for familiar anchors.

Approval-seeking isn’t a flaw.
It’s a learned survival strategy.

But if we let it get the best of us, it slowly erodes the very thing you’re trying to rebuild: self-trust.

The first step is just noticing the behavior when it comes up.

Before you ask for someone else’s opinion, pause and ask:
What do I think?

I’m not saying to not get any other perspectives, but before getting them.

Your voice deserves first say, not last.

How to Shift From External Validation to Inner Authority

For many women, especially those who spent years in partnership, saying yes kept the peace. Being agreeable kept things stable.

That part of you did its job.

The work now isn’t to reject that part of yourself, but to thank it and slowly release yourself from it.

Here’s a visualization that helps many of my clients:

Imagine all the voices that live rent-free in your head, parents, ex-partners, friends, cultural expectations, sitting around a table offering opinions.

You thank them for their input.

And then tell them:
“I’ve got it from here.”

You don’t try to quiet the voices.
You just stop letting them fly the plane.

Rebuilding Trust Through Small Decisions

One of the biggest misconceptions about confidence is that it comes from big, bold moves.

It doesn’t.

It comes from repetition of small, daily things.

If you only practice decision-making when the stakes are high, it will always feel terrifying.

So start small.

Decide:

• How you want your morning to feel

• What you’ll do this weekend

• What you eat for breakfast, intentionally

• Whether you take a different route home

Not because these choices are life-changing, but because you chose them.

Each small decision reinforces the idea:
I’m in charge of my own life.

Over time, those micro-reps build the strength needed for heavier decisions.

Who Are You Without Other People’s Expectations?

As you begin leading your life again, you may notice something else.

You’re no longer matching the version of yourself others remember.

That can be disorienting, especially with family.

I experienced this with my parents. After my divorce, they expected me to return to an older version of myself.

But she didn’t exist anymore.

Growth requires recalibration.
Sometimes you go too far before finding balance again.

What matters is this:
You don’t have to shrink yourself to manage other people’s discomfort. Moreover, it’s not your job to manage other people’s discomfort at all.

You can’t control how others respond to your growth.
But you can choose not to carry guilt for it.

When guilt shows up, replace the question:
“What will people think?”
with:
“What aligns with my values now?”

Is It Too Late to Start Leading Your Own Life?

This question comes up at every age. The fear of being left “behind.”

And I found that underneath, usually it isn’t fear of time, but fear of discomfort.

Learning new ways of living.
Questioning old scripts.
Starting without guarantees or any certainty.

But here’s a reframe for you:

When you leave a marriage, you step outside a script many people never question.

And that gives you access to questions most people haven’t asked yet:

• What life do I actually want?

• What matters to me now?

• How do I want to live?

Being in a place of asking those questions isn’t a setback.

It means you’re starting to own your life with newfound agency.

You’re not behind.
You’re early.

Staying with Your Choice

Decision-making after divorce is not just choosing once and getting on with it.

It’s about staying with your choices, even when others resist your growth.

It’s about building a daily relationship with your own authority.

And that relationship is built through follow-through consistently.

Want Help Grounding Your Decisions?

If you want support anchoring your choices in something steadier than fear or approval, I created a free Build Your Compass exercise.

It takes five minutes and helps you identify your core values, the foundation for confident, self-led decisions.

You can download it for free here.

First Published in Write Your World, Jan 15, 2026

The last few days I was busy recovering: body hurts, movement limitations, couldn’t work out (and honestly, deep down, I wasn’t that devastated about that one). But I couldn’t go dancing either, which I actually minded. Dancing is one of the ways I’ve always kept myself sane. Not for fitness, as a play-thing.

Play is an intrinsically motivated, self-chosen, and pleasurable activity done for its own sake.

We now know that play isn’t just for kids, and it’s not a luxury or optional. It’s fundamental to our well-being.

Here’s an interesting piece about the topic from the National Institute of Play.

I’ve been pretty intentional about play my whole life, actually. Singing, dancing, art. It’s the one category I’ve always tried to protect, even when everything else was chaos.

Early years of motherhood it started slipping away (and no, playing with kids’ toys doesn’t count, for me at least).

But the last four years, since my separation, between what I can only describe as the divorce project (somehow still counts as work, even when it costs you a fortune), rebuilding my health, and investing in relationships and friendships in a new place, play got squeezed out.

So when the surgery took dancing off the table for a few weeks, there was a gap to be filled. And this is where it gets a little unexpected.

A few weeks earlier, I was venting with my daughter about her recorder classes at school. Unpopular opinion: I think it’s a bad idea to teach 3rd graders the recorder. She doesn’t like it, and I remembered that feeling exactly when I was forced to learn it at her age. With tiny fingers, I couldn’t cover the holes; the sound was genuinely terrible, and I got completely discouraged from playing music because of it.

I said something like, why the recorder? Why not the harmonica? It’s cheap, small, has no issue with small hands, and actually sounds good.

We laughed about it and moved on.

Over the next few days, the Meta ads started pumping my feed (if you ever had a doubt, they’re listening…). Harmonica course, learn to play the harmonica in two weeks, and so on. I raised an eyebrow. But also… I got curious. I love blues (usually I do the listening and dancing), and the harmonica is the blues instrument.

So I thought: why not? Maybe it could be something fun to do together with my daughter, a better introduction to music than either of us got from the recorder.

That Friday at my parents’ place, I mentioned it casually. My dad disappeared for a second and came back holding a Hering 1923 Vintage Harp still in the box that someone had gifted him years ago, and handed it to me.

And just like that, I picked up a new hobby.

I started playing right away (sorry neighbors). It’s surprisingly easy to start; you don’t even have to read music sheets. Just Googled some tabs, and quickly fell into this whole world I knew nothing about: diatonic vs chromatic, bending, train rhythm, blues licks… A completely new jargon, a completely new curiosity.

I started practicing in the mornings before the day started, just me and this little instrument. It was genuinely fun. I noticed that while it required me to be very conscious of my breath, it turned out to be not a bad way to start a day when you’re stressed about an upcoming surgery.

There is no goal, no finish line, and no outcome attached to it, nothing to optimize, nowhere to get to. Just fun.

And then the surgery happened, and it forced me to take some time off and slow down. I didn’t write anything. I wasn’t in a creative state. I was just healing. But I kept playing the harmonica, just a few minutes a day, and it helped more than pushing through would have.

When did you last do something like that? Something that had nothing to do with getting better or moving forward or being productive — just something you wanted to try because why not?

I ask because I think we underestimate what it costs to cut play out completely.

There’s this exercise from a book called Designing Your Life — it asks you to rate your satisfaction across four life areas: work, love, health, and play. Play is always the one that needs attention, even when I’m actively trying.

Starting over after divorce isn’t something you push through for a few intense months and come out the other side of. It goes on and on. It becomes part of your life, ongoing, and you have to build everything else around it.

Your mental capacity gets maxed out on things you never asked to learn. And even when you’re intentional about play, even when you’re trying, life has a way of squeezing it out. Saying: “We’ll get to it later”.

Until something unexpected sneaks back in through a crack.

So I’m curious — what’s your harp-moment right now? What have you been meaning to try, or used to love, or randomly thought about for no particular reason? Not what you should be doing. Just what sounds kind of fun.

I’m off to practice my harmonica (yup, I bought the course).

Stay playful,

Mashav

Read Last Editions:

Listen to the podcast episode for more practical tips and my own personal experience:

Five years ago, when I was still married, we lived a very comfortable life. Went out to restaurants, music concerts, traveled multiple times a year, and took a weekly sitter. And even though I was always the more price-conscious one, it’s easy to get used to that version of life.

And then, almost overnight, that life ceased to exist, and I had to make some tough decisions: what stays, what goes, and what actually matters.

After divorce, you’re not just managing money. You’re managing time, emotional energy, logistics, parenting, grief, and often a total restructuring of your life. So the question is not: How do I become as frugal as possible?

The question is: What is actually worth cutting, simplifying, outsourcing, automating, or keeping?

What I’ve learned is that the best savings are the ones with the best return on investment. The ones that save real money, reduce stress, and fit your new reality

Some tips save a little money but cost too much time. Some save money but make life feel worse. And some are simply too small to matter when you’re rebuilding your life after a major separation.

So instead of writing another generic “how to save money after divorce” article, I’m sharing ten principles to focus on the highest return-on-investment expense cuts that are actually worth it.

1. Don’t Chase Tiny Savings

Do: cut the big structural expenses first.
Housing, transportation, legal costs, childcare, food systems — these are the big levers that matter far more than clipping coupons or obsessing over a few dollars here and there.

Don’t: waste all your energy chasing tiny savings that barely move the needle.

2. Don’t Optimize for Money Alone

Do: think in three currencies: money, time, and energy.
A saving is only worth it if it actually improves your life, not just your bank balance.

Don’t: treat saving money as the only goal while draining your time and mental bandwidth.

3. Don’t Rely on Willpower

Do: build systems that make the right choice the easy one.
This applies to food, bills, and daily decisions. Set things up once so you don’t have to keep deciding.

Don’t: depend on motivation or discipline every day to make “better” choices.

4. Don’t Go Cold Turkey

Do: adjust categories before trying to eliminate them entirely.
Reduce frequency, find a cheaper version, or keep a simpler version that still works for you. This applies well for things like beauty appointments (think nails, hair, makeup etc.), and paid help (cleaner, babysitter…).

Don’t: assume the only responsible move is to remove entire parts of your life.

5. Don’t Remove All Joy

Do: keep one or two intentional indulgences.
Choose what actually matters to you and keep it on purpose. Mine are a set of luxury sheets and a monthly massage appointment.

Don’t: strip your life down so much that it becomes joyless and hard to sustain.

6. Don’t Default to Buying New

Do: use second-hand, shared, swapped, or borrowed options.
There’s an entire ecosystem that makes rebuilding much cheaper and often more personal.

Don’t: assume you need to replace everything with brand-new versions.

7. Don’t Ignore Recurring Leaks

Do: review subscriptions, fees, and automatic charges.
A single cleanup can keep saving you money every month without ongoing effort.

Don’t: leave small recurring expenses running just because life feels chaotic.

8. Don’t Prove You Can Do Everything Alone

Do: pay for support where mistakes are expensive.
Therapy, legal help, financial advice or certain types of support can save you far more than they cost.

Don’t: force yourself to DIY everything just to save money in the short term.

9. Don’t Trade Your Future for Short-Term Convenience

Do: protect your health and baseline energy. Not everything that’s cheap now is actually a good deal.

Don’t: choose what’s cheapest and easiest now if it will make your life worse later. Junk food, zero sleep, constant stress, skipping movement, all of these feel efficient in the moment. They save time, energy, and sometimes even money. But they cost you later. In your health, your mood, your capacity to function. And fixing that is always more expensive.

10. Don’t Aim for Perfect

Do: aim for clarity and sustainability.
A simple system that works is better than a perfect one you can’t maintain.

Don’t: try to optimize every detail at the cost of your energy and consistency.

More Breathing Room

After divorce, there’s often a temptation to become extremely frugal out of fear. But frugality is only useful if it improves your life.

The best expense cuts are the ones that give you space: more money, more calm, more stability, more time, more breathing room.

That’s why I don’t believe in saving money for the sake of it. I believe in saving money where it actually counts.

So that you have enough time and energy to recharge, rest, be with your loved ones, skill up, and make more money. And this is the topic I will write about in the next article.

Rebuild Financial Stability

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by where to even start, I created a post-divorce financial survival system called “From Panic to Power.”

It quickly calculates your bare minimum survival number and gives you a personalized snapshot of where you stand and what to focus on next, using the included checklist.

You can grab it here.

It’s designed to give you clarity in under 30 minutes, so you’re not stuck trying to figure it all out on your own.

Starting over is difficult and exhausting, and no doubt a serious matter. But sometimes all we need is to lighten things up a little. Exhale, smile and acknowledge how far we’ve come. So today I wanted to share some breezy and fun items for your enjoyment. Hope you have a calm week.

Until next time,

Mashav

ONE STORY:

10 Things Men Write on Dating Apps and What They Actually Mean - The post-divorce edition

“Just Going With the Flow” → He Will Waste Your Time.

He doesn’t want to define anything, especially not early.

He is not looking for a relationship but won’t say so because it reduces his options. You might invest. He stays open-ended.
At some point, you’ll ask what this is. He’ll act as if the question came out of nowhere.

ONE VIDEO:

I Like my Men How I Like my IKEA Furniture

I found this funny post in one of my Threads doom-scrolling and made a short video about it. It got a lot of attention and some extra interesting ideas in the comment section. Feel free to add your own and follow me on TikTok.

@hellonew.meI joined threads recently and it's surprisingly good sometimes. Bringing you my favorite posts #womenforwomen #ikea #relationships #threads #menandwomen

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ONE RECOMMENDATION:

Wordslut: A Hilarious and Informative Exploration of Gendered Language and Its Impact on Women by Amanda Montell

I mentioned this book last week, but I wanted to dedicate an official recommendation section to it, because it deserves it. It’s rare to find such a good balance between a cut-throat and funny reading, but this book is exactly that. It’s witty, fascinating and funny without being cute or shallow. Plus, it’s full of cuss words, and that’s the whole point.

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If you want more content like this, the best way is to follow one of these channels:

→ YouTube → TikTok → Instagram

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About Me

This week’s newsletter will be a bit different (I like switching it up once in a while). Reply or comment below to let me know how you like this format.

I remember raising my voice in an argument with my ex once, genuinely upset, with something real to say, and being told: “I will not tolerate you speaking to me that way.” And just like that, the conversation was over. My delivery gave him an exit.

Another time something similar happened was when I was constantly talked over in a dinner and when I finally got the courage to say something about it, I immediately got the “you’re crazy” stare from everyone in the room.

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If you’re a woman starting over after divorce, you know the drill.

You spend enormous energy calibrating how you say things, hoping that if you just get the tone right this time, you’ll finally be heard: Calm enough, but firm. Not too emotional but also not too cold. You rehearse it, you remove the anger, and anticipate every objection.

It happens during your marriage, in family court, in divorce mediation, in co-parenting conversations, even at the dinner table with close family.

And still, somehow, you’re being criticized.

This week I picked up Word Slut by Amanda Montell — funny, sharp, worth reading if linguistics is your thing. There’s a section about exactly this.

The way women are policed for how they speak: the upward intonation (when you end the sentence upward as a question to soften delivery), using hedging words (using “like”, “you know” etc), the vocal fry.

Unprofessional, childish, not authoritative enough.

Except… research shows men use these patterns just as much.

The critique was never really about the speech.

It reminded me of a video by a creator I follow, Dandan Zhu, where she coaches women to switch from upspeak to downspeak at the end of sentences, so you sound more authoritative and taken more seriously. I actually tried it for a while; there’s real power in being aware of that pattern and using it as a tool when you need it.

And then this week, I watched a video by the branding specialist, Miranda Shanahan, about how marketing roles are being rebranded as more masculine by adding “engineer” to the title, and how it’s tracing a pattern that repeats itself throughout history.

When a field becomes profitable, it gets renamed, appropriated by men, and the women who built it get edged out. It happened to programming, which was a female-dominated field, that turned into “computer engineering” and a male-dominated sector ever since. It’s happening again now.

We’re baited into fixing ourselves, just to be disqualified anyway.

Same mechanism. Different domain.

The goalposts keep moving.

We figured it out back in the early 2020s when the “girl-boss” era backfired and we realized that it was promoting a toxic mentality repackaged as “female empowerment”.

During divorce, when the discussions are high-stakes and the power isn’t equal, you’ll need to be strategic sometimes.

But if you sense that no matter how articulate, calm, reasonable, educated, and informed you speak your truth, you get dismissed with criticism about your imperfect delivery, don’t bother trying to fix yourself even more.

The issue is never how you say something when they never planned to listen in the first place.

Read Last Editions:

If you want more content like this, the best way is to follow one of these channels:

→ YouTube → TikTok → Instagram

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About Me

Starting over after a divorce means different things for different people, but money tends to be a sensitive topic to so many. It represents a sense of safety and control (or lack of it) in moments that rarely have certainty. Adjusting to a new financial reality can be hard and even painful. I’ve been there. This is why I spent a lot of effort the last few weeks to improve From Panic to Power - a Post-Divorce Financial Checklist. It was updated this week based on buyer requests, and it now features a “bare minimum calculator” and a “financial snapshot tool”. Here’s a link if you want it.

Stay safe,

Mashav

ONE STORY:

The Parts of the Red Pill I Secretly Agree With (As a Feminist)

Last week I wrote about Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere under the recommendation section of the newsletter. Since then the artile I wrote about the topic gained a lot of traction so I decided to make it available to non-members and feature it here as well:

Here are things I’ll take:

The instinct that something is broken.
The refusal to blindly follow scripts.
The desire to understand how things actually work.

But I’m not interested in replacing one distorted view with another.

If there’s a “pill” worth taking, it’s not the one that tells you who to blame.

ONE Podcast:

ONE RECOMMENDATION:

Creator: Alex on a Budget

Keeping with the theme of budgeting and cost-cutting, I’ve been following Alex on TikTok for a few years now. She is a creator helping the younger crowd cut down their debt and live on a budget. She talks about personal finance tools, investments and cutting expenses while staying sane, and at the same time, shares some lifestyle content from her own life. She also shares her income and expenses transparently every single month. Find her on TikTok and Instagram.

Read Last Editions:

If you want more content like this, the best way is to follow one of these channels:

→ YouTube → TikTok → Instagram

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About Me

But the instinct many women have to try to save as much as possible, cut everything, optimize everything. Is it really the right move?

You’re not just managing money anymore.
You’re managing time, energy, stress, and a life that’s already in transition.

In this episode, Mashav breaks down a different way to think about cost-cutting after divorce, one that actually works in real life.

Instead of asking “How do I save the most?”, she introduces a more useful question:
“What is actually worth saving?”

You’ll learn how to evaluate expenses based on real return on investment, across three currencies: money, time, and energy, and how to stop wasting effort on low-impact decisions that drain you.

The goal is not to become frugal; it’s to have an intentional strategy.

If you’ve been feeling overwhelmed, restricted, or stuck in financial anxiety… this episode will help you create space, not just savings.

Topics Covered:

• The three currencies you’re actually managing

• How to evaluate whether a cost-cutting decision is worth it

• The difference between high-ROI savings vs exhausting micro-optimizations

• The biggest financial levers

• The power of secondhand and community-based resources

• Adjusting beauty, lifestyle, and personal care without losing yourself

• Why therapy is not a luxury expense

• Legal fees: how to think about it differently

• Hidden financial leaks

• The “one indulgence” principle and why it matters

• What’s worth doing yourself vs what’s worth paying for

Resources Mentioned:

“From Panic to Power” — Post-Divorce Financial Checklist
A step-by-step guide with a bare minimum calculator, financial snapshot, and 23 key actions to help you stabilize and rebuild your finances after separation

💌 Stay Connected

• 🗞 New Me Weekly:
  Stay connected with reflections, stories, and rebuild tools

• Instagram: @hellonewme.official

• TikTok: @hellonew.me

• YouTube: Hello New Me Channel

Chapters:

00:04 Introduction
02:28 The Real Goal of Cost-Cutting
03:02 The Three Currencies
03:51 The ROI Test for Saving Money
05:19 Big Structural Expenses
06:58 Food Systems That Work
08:08 Secondhand & Community Resources
11:21 Beauty & Lifestyle Adjustments
14:12 Therapy as a Smart Investment
15:26 Legal Fees & Costly Mistakes
16:49 Hidden Subscription Leaks
18:20 The One Indulgence Principle
20:12 Stop Over-Optimizing Small Things
21:17 What to DIY vs What to Pay For
22:44 Financial Baseline & Checklist
23:22 Recap
24:49 Final Thoughts

We talk about starting over like it’s a clean slate. But that’s not really what’s happening.

You carry everything with you: the marriage, the years, the version of yourself who stayed longer than she should have, the fantasies of lives that never happened. None of that disappears. It just slowly shapes who you’re becoming.

That’s not starting over. That’s evolution.

ONE STORY:

10 Things Men Write on Dating Apps and What They Actually Mean
The post-divorce edition

When he writes "New in Town, Show Me Around," he actually means: “Here for work for a week, married, looking to cheat.”

Most men aren't writing profiles to accurately represent themselves, they're writing to maximize matches. The result is a layer of translation you have to learn if you don't want to waste time and emotional bandwidth on people who were never a fit.

The complete dictionary is part of The Anti-Dating-Advice Toolkit: a framework for dating intentionally after divorce, on your own terms.

ONE VIDEO:

Are we really starting over, or are we starting for the very first time?

I keep talking about the concept of “starting over” when speaking about the journey of rebuilding a life after ending a long marriage. When I came across this essay by Y.L. Wolf on Medium, I realized this might not be completely accurate. Are we really starting over?

“Have you ever encountered a woman whose life crumbles in her 40s, 50s, 60s and says, “at least I know exactly who I am, at least I never lost myself?”

(not really)

Many of us never had the luxury of starting our own lives in our formative years.

We’re not starting over again. We’re starting for the very first time.

ONE RECOMMENDATION:

TV: Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere

The Manosphere is an online movement promoting masculinity, often with anti-feminist and misogynistic views. Red-Pillers are a community within the manosphere of men who believe that by “taking the red pill” (Matrix reference), they are waking up to a society that oppresses men and is controlled by women.

While watching this new documentary, I realized that there’s something similar between women starting over after divorce and Red Pillers. They both wake up to a world that handed them a script and expected them to follow it. The difference is where they go with that realization. One direction leads to toxicity and blame. The other leads to building a life that’s truly for you.

I wrote about this in my newest article: The Parts of the Red Pill I Secretly Agree With (As a Feminist).

Read Last Editions:

If you want more content like this, the best way is to follow one of these channels:

→ YouTube → TikTok → Instagram

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About Me

If you’re asking yourself some version of “is it bad enough to leave?”, you’re asking the wrong question. The question should be “is it good enough to stay”. When you see it that way, everything shifts. You’re no longer required to survive it. You’re asking whether you would choose it again, as it is today, as the life you’re actively choosing for yourself.

This week’s newsletter is focused on that complex and lonely place I call Stage 0: the stage before separation, before any decision is made, before anything is official.

And everything else in this issue connects back to one thing: mustering the agency to act when the time comes to make a very uncomfortable decision.

ONE STORY:

I read this article this week and thought about how starting over after divorce is an act of disobedience in its own right. The pressure to stay isn’t abstract: it comes from your family, your community, and the expectations you’ve spent years internalizing. Wife. Mother. Keeper of other people’s comfort. When you step away from those roles, it feels like rebellion, even when all you’re doing is choosing yourself.

This is why leaving a marriage is so hard. It’s a subversive act. And the antidote is practicing small acts of daily disobedience, so that your agency stays intact, and so that when the moment comes to make a very uncomfortable but very necessary move, you already know how.

ONE PODCAST:

ONE RECOMMENDATION:

TV: Seeing Allred - documentary on Netflix.

Gloria Allred is a woman who spent decades taking cases no one else would touch, in a field that made clear she wasn't entirely welcome. She never once adjusted herself to make the room more comfortable. Worth watching this week, when we're talking about what it actually takes to act against the grain.

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If you want more content like this, the best way is to follow one of these channels:

→ YouTube → TikTok → Instagram

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About Me

You’re still in the marriage. Nothing has officially changed.
But something inside you has.

You keep circling the same question:
“Am I actually going to have to end this?”

And just as quickly, you shut it down:
“It’s not that bad. Other people have it worse. Maybe I’m overreacting.”

In this episode, Mashav explores what she calls Stage 0 — the stage before separation, where you’re living your normal life on the outside, but internally questioning everything.

You won’t be told whether you should stay or leave.
This episode will help you see your situation clearly, without minimising, spiralling, or rushing into a decision you’re not ready for.

You’ll walk through the real questions most women avoid asking themselves, about love, fear, resentment, self-worth, and the life you’re imagining on the other side.

If you’ve been going back and forth in your head, feeling stuck, confused, or alone in this decision… this episode will meet you exactly where you are.

Topics Covered

• What “Stage 0” of divorce actually is

• Why this stage feels so lonely and confusing

• The trap of “for better or for worse”

• Why “Do I have a good enough reason to leave?” is the wrong question

• The better question: Do I have a good enough reason to stay?

• Emotional patterns that signal deeper disconnection

• The difference between staying from love vs staying from fear

• The 10–20 year thought experiment

• The Four Horsemen

• “Staying for the kids.”

• The sunk cost trap and why it keeps you stuck

• When it’s actually wise to slow down instead of rushing

• Listening to your body as a source of truth

• What to do if you’re not ready to leave yet (Stage 0.5)

Resources Mentioned

“Is It Time to End Your Marriage?” FREE Guide
A reflection-based guide with prompts from this episode to help you think through your situation without overwhelm

💌 Stay Connected

• 🗞 New Me Weekly:
  Stay connected with reflections, stories, and rebuild tools

• Instagram: @hellonewme.official

• TikTok: @hellonew.me

• YouTube: Hello New Me Channel

Chapters:

00:47 Welcome to Stage Zero
02:18 What Stage Zero Feels Like
03:53 Rethinking the Vows
05:33 Bad Enough?
07:34 The Emotional Labor
09:36 If Fear Was Gone
11:03 Future Letter Test
12:19 Gottman’s Four Horsemen
14:22 “Staying for the Kids”
16:31 Sunk Cost Trap
18:13 When to Slow Down
20:05 Notice Body Signals
20:57 Stage 0.5
22:27 Closing Check In

My daughter told me last night that she misses something, but doesn’t really know exactly what.

- “Your old school? Our old apartment?”

- “No. It’s someone, not something. A person or an animal.”

- “Oh. Is it your dad? Your grandfather? Your best friend from your old school?”

- “I know who I miss, actually: Mr. Wow (our late cat), my dad, and you, Mom.”

- “But I’m right here with you. How can you miss me?”

- “Not how you are now, how you were before, the old you.”

- “Was it when I wasn’t working so much, and I had more time for you?”

- “No. Not that. I don’t know. When we used to go on trips to nature and all that, I only remember from photos.”

She didn’t say it, but I think she misses the time before we got divorced, the old version of me, the one that I worked so hard to GROW out of.

- ”It’s okay to miss her. I miss her too sometimes. And in a few years, you’re going to miss that moment right here and now.”

- ”Really? How do you know?”

- ”I just do.”

ONE STORY:

Child Mind Institute: Supporting Kids During a Divorce

The best thing parents can do is let their kids know that any emotions they have are okay. Trying to cheer them up just puts pressure on them to feel a way they don’t.

ONE VIDEO:

The Split Outreach Project:

This project followed 12 kids of divorced parents, ages 6-12 and made a film: “Split: The Early Years,” focusing on the kids’ point of view during a divorce. Then ten years later, they followed up again with the same 12 kids who were now in their teen years and created the sequel “Split Up: The Teen Years”. Both films are available to purchase through the website, alongside of a parents’ guide.

ONE RECOMMENDATION:

Book: Mom’s House, Dad’s House for Kids by Isolina Ricci Ph.D.

A book for kids ages 8 and up that you can read together or give them to explore on their own.

Written by the internationally renowned therapist, family expert and mediator Isolina Ricci, Ph.D. The essential guide for kids on how to stay strong and succeed in life when parents separate, divorce, or get married again. This book is packed with practical tips, frank answers, easy-to-use lists, “train your brain” ideas, reproducible worksheets, and things to try when words just won’t come out right.

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If you want more content like this, the best way is to follow one of these channels:

→ YouTube → TikTok → Instagram

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About Me

Divorce can make you feel like your entire life has been reset, except you didn’t get to choose the timing. Suddenly, you’re faced with decisions about your home, your finances, your career, your identity… all at once.

It’s overwhelming.

Subscribe now

But here’s the thing: starting over doesn’t have to mean starting from scratch. You already have wisdom, resilience, and life experience that can become the foundation for something even better. If you know how to use it wisely.

Hustling harder or pretending you’re fine doesn’t cut it in this case. If you want to start over the clever way, you should architect your rebuild with intentionality and strategy.

When my marriage ended, I thought the hardest part would be the divorce itself.

I was wrong.
The hardest part was the after: the mornings I woke up to a life I didn’t recognize, the nights when I felt lonely and abandoned, and the constant weight of decisions I was suddenly expected to make alone.

There’s a moment after a major life change where the world feels both wide open and terrifying.
And in that moment, most women fall into one of two paths:

The Default Way — reacting, surviving, waiting for validation.
Or The Clever Way — rebuilding with intention, direction, and courage.

The Difference Between the Default Way and the Clever Way

After a divorce, no one is handing you a roadmap.
So we default into survival:

• Putting out fires.

• Managing logistics.

• Keeping everyone else afloat.

• Telling ourselves we’ll figure it out “later.”

• Waiting for clarity to arrive magically.

That’s the default way.
It’s passive, reactive, and rooted in fear and exhaustion. Not because we’re weak, but because no one ever taught us another way.

The clever way is different.

It’s intentional. It’s proactive.

It’s where you decide: If my life is already changing, I’m going to be the one shaping what it becomes.

Clever women don’t rebuild by accident. They rebuild by design.

The Clever Way Starts With Rediscovering Yourself (Instead of Trying to Fix Everything First)

The default way says:
“Let me solve the external chaos first, then I’ll get to myself.”

But the clever way says:
“If I don’t reconnect with myself, none of the external decisions will feel right.”

When I finally allowed myself to pause and ask:

“Who am I now? Who am I becoming?”

Something clicked.
I needed to let go of the old me, the married me, and even the overwhelmed, panicked, post-divorce version of me.

And what I found was a woman who knows her values, her energy queues, and her identity.

Clever women start their rebuild from the inside out. They don’t skip the self-rediscovery step, because that’s where all their future decisions start making sense again.

The Clever Way Is About Allowing Yourself To Want Again

When you’re overwhelmed or heartbroken, desire feels dangerous. Dreaming feels indulgent. Wanting anything feels like too much.

So the default way is to shut it all down:

• “I’ll figure it out when I’m more stable.”

• “I don’t even know what I want anymore.”

• “Let me just get through this week.”

The clever way lets desire wake back up.

Clever women ask:

• What actually excites me now?

• What makes me feel joy, pleasure, and aliveness?

• What kind of mornings do I want to wake up to?

• What do I want my money, my time, my relationships to look like now?

• What would it look like to build a life that fits me?

This is where momentum returns, the moment you allow yourself to imagine fuller, brighter chapters ahead instead of only surviving the one you’re in.

The Clever Way Is to Relearn How to Trust Yourself

The default way after a divorce is to question everything: your judgment, your instincts, your ability to make good decisions again. When you’ve spent years making choices as part of a “we,” it’s easy to slip into second-guessing, hesitating, or looking to others for reassurance. The default way keeps you in a loop of “What if I’m wrong?”
And without realizing it, you start outsourcing your choices to fear, guilt, or the opinions around you.

Clever women relearn how to hear their own voice: gently at first, then boldly. They stop letting fear vote on their future. They stop giving away their authority. They begin choosing based on alignment, not approval.

And it doesn’t happen through one big breakthrough. It happens decision by decision — tiny acts of self-trust that slowly stitch your confidence back together.
That’s how trust slowly builds.

The Clever Way Turns Insight Into Action (Instead of “Thinking About It” Forever)

Most of us stay stuck not because we don’t know enough, but because we don’t act on what we already know.

The default way is full of:

• hesitation

• overwhelm

• “maybe later”

• consuming but not doing

• knowing but not moving

The clever way is where you gather everything you’ve rediscovered and say,
“Okay. Let’s do something with this.”

Clever women take aligned, simple, doable steps, not dramatic leaps. They move forward with clarity rooted in who they are and what they truly want.

This is how your rebuild becomes real.

Why I Know the Clever Way Works

Starting over after a divorce isn’t a punishment (it does feel that way, though, right?). It’s a second chance to design your life

When I finally stopped waiting for things to “settle down,” I realized this truth:

My future wasn’t going to happen on its own. I had to build it.

It didn’t require perfection. It required honesty. Reflection. And small but powerful actions.

And once I understood the sequence: rediscover → desire → aligned action, I rebuilt my life faster, cleaner, and more confidently than I ever thought possible.

That sequence is what I now teach.
Because it works.
Because women deserve clarity without the years of confusion, isolation, and emotional exhaustion I went through.

The Clever Way is the Intentional Way

Clever women see the end of their marriage not as a failure, but as an inflection point. They understand that every ending can be the start of a better chapter if they’re willing to go through the effort of making it a worthy one.

Clever women don’t wait for clarity.
They create it.

They don’t chase the old version of themselves.
They rediscover the new one.

And they don’t rebuild their future by accident.
They build it on purpose.

If you’re ready to shift from the Default Way to the Clever Way, with guidance, structure, and a step-by-step path, I created a framework that can help.

A Powerful Way to Begin Your Clever Rebuild

Your Next Chapter, Mapped is a 15-day self-guided process that turns what you already know into a written plan: what matters now, what to do first, and how to make decisions with confidence.

5 minutes a day. On day 15, your roadmap is complete.

Get Your Roadmap

Your next chapter can start today: with intention, with courage, and with you back at the center of your life where you belong.

Published first in Medium publication EMPRESENCE on Nov 26, 2025

Difficult week of war and uncertainty is closing today, and so, I wanted to share an article I read from an acclaimed female Iranian writer in exile, Mahsa Mohebali, about war and divorce. Hoping to share more voices of female writers in the next editions. Reply to this newsletter if you have a recommendation, I’d love to get your input.

Also, episode 8 of the New Me Podcast is out today so make sure you tune in!

Mashav

Your Next Chapter Strategist

ONE STORY:

Mahsa Mohebali: Divorce and War

ONE PODCAST:

ONE RECOMMENDATION:

I gathered all the resources and recommendations for financial stability after divorce into one page, and you can find it here:

Read Last Editions:

If you want more content like this, the best way is to follow one of these channels:

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About Me

In this episode, I introduce my four-stage model of divorce recovery (plus a Stage 0 before anything is official).

Through a clear, stage-by-stage framework, this episode helps you:

• Recognize which stage you’re actually in

• Understand what your nervous system is trying to do in each phase

• Stop demanding long-term clarity from yourself when you’re still in short-term survival

• See what kind of support and focus is most realistic for this stage, not trying to tackle all at once

Chapters:

00:00 Divorce Is Not a Movie
00:39 Four Stages Overview
02:56 Stage Zero The Limbo
04:49 Stage One Crisis Mode
07:24 Stage Two Transition
10:41 Stage Three Recovery
13:23 Stage Four Renewal
16:12 Decision Fatigue Reality
17:01 Find Your Stage Next Steps

Resources Mentioned

Stage 1: Crisis

📘 From Panic to Power - Financial Checklist
A step-by-step guide to rebuild safety, clarity, and confidence with money

Stage 2: Transition

🗞 New Me Weekly:
Stay connected with reflections, stories, and rebuild tools

Stage 3: Recovery

📘 Build Your Compass (Free Core Values Exercise)
A 5-minute exercise to identify your top core values and use them as a foundation for decision-making.

Stage 4: Renewal

🪞 15-Day Self-Guided Roadmap Building Tool
A structure for designing a bolder, more intentional life in just 5 minutes a day.

💌 Stay Connected

• Instagram: @hellonewme.official

• TikTok: @hellonew.me

• YouTube: Hello New Me Channel