A Confession
...of where I've been and what I've been up to
Dear friends,
As you may have noticed, I took a little hiatus from writing here. I wish I had a more compelling reason, but the truth is I just didn’t have enough bandwidth to keep up writing here in the ways that I wanted to while I was fiercely channelling my energy into a new stage of life unfolding for me. Namely, finding a path to financial autonomy as my spousal support comes to an end.
If you’ve been here any length of time, you know that I’ve been through a divorce in the last few years. In November 2021, the things I had compacted deep inside of myself for years on end finally dislodged themselves and came bubbling up. I told my then husband that it couldn’t be a discussion we endlessly danced around anymore - I simply couldn’t keep fighting for something that felt increasingly isolating and harder to see, much less grasp with my hands or heart.
In that moment, it didn’t feel like “I” told him anything. It felt like I witnessed some other force inhabit my body, draw the words through my throat and into the air between us like one of those endless ribbons out of a hat in a magic track. I think about that moment a lot, about what it felt like to finally surrender to truth, to feel inhabited by a power that had until that moment laid dormant and unrealized inside of me.
It is nearly (sort of) November 2024: three years later from that moment, two years after the split of our home and money. The journey has been about coping in the complete fallout of everything I thought I had and was. I’d like to say it was about “letting myself fall apart” but the truth is I had no say in that because it just happened, ready or not. It was like someone shook up the etch-a-sketch I had been painstakingly working on for the last 35 years.
I started this newsletter to let other women into that part of my world. I needed a space to put words to my undoing, to memorialize the intensity and depth of the pain and loss. I realized that many women understood the life-language I was speaking more than I thought they would.
Over time, my desperation, despair and depression started lifting. Slowly, slowly, I learned what I was capable of as I put one terrified foot in front of the other. I made ends meet in a hundred different ways. I refinanced on my house after being told about 9 times by many different lenders it was impossible for me. I met a man who changed what I thought about men. I traveled more. I opened my heart again. I fell in love. I embraced the mess I had willingly made of my life. I took hard looks into the mirror and got very honest with myself about the parts I played in my own suffering.
And as I had to walk myself up to the edge of several cliffs that felt like death was upon me (what if I lose my house? what if I can’t pay all my bills? what if my children resent me for this? what if family never comes around again? what if I’m alone forever? what if I am just irrevocably fucked up and I don’t see it? what if I feel outcast forever? what if I’m making a mistake with this man?) I thought more intently about what kind of woman I wanted to be for my children in the face of the rest of our lives, and I thought intently on what I wanted life to feel like for the rest of my life.
I changed my mind about a lot of things. Like… myself, like success, like the world at large, like money, like pleasure, like agency, like God (though I prefer “Spirit” or no word at all) like self-imposed limitations, like rotted out psychological roots, like what’s possible for me if my soul is the right kind of fertile.
Because the entire undertone of my being has shifted, I struggled to know how to make that shift here, a place that has so generously been a container for my confusion, anger, and pain. For so many years, my identity was centered around struggling, covering up, reacting, recovering, complaining, holding back, playing small, believing the worst, and feeling varying degrees of imprisoned and disempowered.
So if you’re still on the newsletter bandwagon, I'm back and inviting you into a new space, here. It’ll still be the raw truth I’ve always given, but the undertones have shifted a little or a lot, as I’m embracing the discomfort of becoming someone new, focusing my gaze on something new. Thanks for being here as I continue to evolve.
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personal things to share:
+ I still rent out my guest room, currently to a 23 year old who is interning in my city for the next nine months. When I tell you that being around a 23 year old both delights me and makes me feel like I am absolutely archaic, lol.
+ My children are now 8 and 11 and I am daily amazed and unwell at this reality. They are smart, adapted, hilarious, tender-hearted. I very often do not know what the hell I am doing (particularly with the 11 year old but to be honest in general parenting is just like, WHERE AM I, WHAT DO I DO?) and the ground is always moving under my feet. My daily intention is to come to them from calm, curiosity, and compassion, reigning in the urge to control.
+ I got another tattoo, lol. I’ve been thinking about this tattoo for a year or two and was being a baby about pulling the trigger. This summer, I did a hypnosis session where I was guided to visualize meeting my future self a few months down the road - a version of me who had gotten past some of the mental limitations I was struggling with. It was so powerful - I cried and cried! And one thing I noticed in the visualization was the future of me had the tattoo I had been holding back on - a small cuff of all the names of Wild Woman. So, I pulled the trigger.
+ I’ve now moved full time into personally coaching women. I work with women for 3 months at a time, entirely 1:1. My work is ideal for women who are ready to get past their fear and make the changes they are secretly (or not so secretly) longing for. You can find out a lot more about my work on my website, and if you’re interested in talking with me about it, you can book a chat with me here.
Some feedback I’ve received from clients working with me:
“It just feels different. I’m showing up differently. I feel consistently the most grounded that I’ve ever felt.” - Brie
“Having you in my pocket has been invaluable. It’s been the most transformative three months of my life.” - Claire
“I’m feeling really happy and light. Thank you so much. This has been a life changing experience for me. I am so thrilled, truly.” - Sarah
“I am so happy every day I signed up to work with you.” - Lindsay
If you’re ready to grow and expand but need some help, I’m here for you. If your answers to the questions on my booking page are an aligned “yes!” - I’m here! Let’s talk.
With great love,
Jolie
