Martha Bodyfelt's Tips for Successful Women on Thriving Post-Divorce through Coaching

Martha Bodyfelt's Tips for Successful Women on Thriving Post-Divorce through Coaching

In this podcast episode, our guest Martha Bodyfelt, a divorce relationship coach, shares invaluable insights on how to navigate life after the trauma of divorce. We explore the importance of learning to negotiate and thrive in this new chapter. Join us as Martha brings her expertise to help listeners successfully recover from divorce and build a fulfilling life.

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Transcript

Martha Bodyfelt's Tips for Successful Women on Thriving Post-Divorce through Coaching

Bettina M Brown: Hello and welcome to In the rising podcast. My name is Bettina and this is the platform I've chosen to talk about where we can live a life that's in alignment with our hopes, our dreams, and our goals. Walking away or figuratively and literally shutting the door on things that don't help us move our needle forward or moving the needle on the compass to our true North.

My guest today is Martha Bodyfelt, and she is a divorce relationship coach. So, helping someone move into a space where they are learning to negotiate life After the trauma of divorce, it will welcome Martha. Thank you so much for your time today on my podcast. So, you are a divorce recovery coach and I'm, I'm really excited to talk to you because we have a very high statistics of divorce.

I myself am divorced and I would just like you to explain what brought you to, to this place right now, to, to help so many people. 

Martha Bodyfelt: Absolutely. I mean, and so. I don't think anybody talks to their high school guidance counselor saying I want to be a divorce coach. You know, how can, how can we get there? I mean, I know I certainly didn't.

And so for, for me, I had kind of an interesting kind of path to get here. After graduating from college and spending time abroad, I was in the United States army. And during that time, I separated separate a career ending injury. And I was married at the time and I think a lot of the PTSD as well as the injury really contributed to the demise of my marriage because within a couple of years I went through kind of a very kind of long messy separation and a long messy divorce.

And so, I really kind of felt lost for a couple of years. Making all the wrong mistakes, you know, dating all the wrong guys, trying to find validation and self-worth in all the wrong places. And so, what I ended up doing was I actually went traveling for about six months and unlike Elizabeth Gilbert in Eat, Pray, Love, when she goes to, you know, when she goes to Asia and finds love and has clarity.

When I came back to Washington D. C. after my time abroad. I felt totally lost and floundering. And I really felt like that for about two or three years after my divorce. And just one day, I just started writing about it. And I didn't even have any, any audience in mind. And I just remember writing what to expect when you're getting divorced, kind of a manifesto.

And on a whim, I sent it to a journal called divorcemoms. com. They picked it up, then they gave it to the Huffington Post, the Huffington Post picked it up, and I got a lot of feedback, and a lot of folks saying, who is this person, and why doesn't she have a blog, and I guess that's how it happened, and I was, I was blogging, and my divorce advice was reaching millions of people, but then one day I had a friend just innocently ask me, and Hey, Martha, do you think there's such thing as a, as a divorce coach?

And it was just that one conversation. And sometimes it happens in life, right? That just, you're not even expecting to have just kind of this life changing conversation with someone. And I had said to my friend, you know, I don't know if, if there's such a thing. And so, I dove in, I did some research, turns out you can, you can get certified for almost anything.

And then I went through an intensive 16 week divorce coaching with the International Coaching Federation. And I've been doing this since, since 2017, I originally specialized in helping folks, particularly women who were going through the divorce process. But then what I found is a lot of my clients were women in their fifties who were professionals who'd been divorced for two or three years and still felt stuck, still felt like they hadn't moved on.

And that kind of was my calling to work specifically with women who'd been divorced, who feel stuck, who were dealing with the pressure.

Dealing with things that society put on them to have self-love. And so that was, I guess, the long circuitous path for my becoming specifically a divorce recovery coach, helping women with navigating mental health right after divorce. Okay. And 

Bettina M Brown: when you said That you felt stuck or that people feel stuck.

I was just on the phone having a conversation or I feel prepared for this conversation. Having been right that whenever because I'm in health care and we have to identify. Are you married? Are you single? Are you divorced? And I said, you know, single and divorced may be still single, but it's like this, this moment in time, it's like, it has to live with you.

I now just say I'm single. I don't, I don't identify as divorced anymore. It's, it's a, it's a part of my life and I treasure that experience, but I'm not, I'm not just like broken. Do you ever feel that women get stuck in that or people get stuck in that? 

Martha Bodyfelt: Absolutely. Absolutely. And it is why I'm so passionate about what I do because I, there are a lot of women and a lot of my readers who would consider themselves to be very successful during their nine to five.

And so, they feel confident, they feel like they can conquer anything, whether it's they're dealing with a, with a client, if they're an attorney, or they're dealing with a student or administration, if they're a science professor. But the moment they shut that laptop down and they walk home, they come home to an empty house that where they still may or may not have that, that, that tan line you get from wearing a wedding band, and they deal with this, well, what am I now, because society has still such negative connotations on women who are divorced, that you're either the poor, you know, kind of sad sack or, oh, it was something you did, which is why the marriage ended.

And I feel like with women, we carry this, this burden and this, this shame anyway from societal expectations. And then you combine that with, with the heartache of the actual heartbreak of ending your marriage, whether you wanted it to end or not. I do feel like Women do feel, do feel broken and when you feel broken, there's no way you can get, you can get unstuck from that until you really kind of are able to reflect on and do the work of what it is, what is it that will make you whole.

And most of the time, that's rewiring your DNA, totally reprogramming yourself from the conditioning that told you were broken. 

Bettina M Brown: And I, I like how you put that kind of the way we're wired because some people seem, and it's not that they seem to move on better, they actually have moved on and others kind of sit in that.

And it doesn't really matter if you've been married one year, two years, or sometimes 30 years, you know because you begin to identify. As married, but just because you're married does not mean you're whole at that time.

Martha Bodyfelt: Absolutely, absolutely. And that's something that I work with my clients about is to be very careful of selective memory.

I think one of the biggest struggles that my clients deal with that is inextricably linked to mental health is a feeling of loneliness and the feeling of isolation and especially during holidays especially during anniversaries especially when they see the other person from high school that maybe they haven't talked to in 30, 40 years post married to my best friend for 25 years and there's just this feeling of deep loneliness.

And it's what I kind of gently challenged him with is you're dealing with selective memory that is making you think every single one of those moments in your marriage was great and fulfilling and wonderful. And I think a lot of us who have been divorced, I know certainly me, I've, I've, I've been divorced, but It is having to be conscious of reminding yourself of people who are in marriages can be lonely.

I think one of the loneliest things is to sleep by somebody. And you guys, your backs are to each other and you're not even talking to each other and you're living as roommates and not even as like a married couple. So just because you're married doesn't mean that you're not going to suffer.

Those, those, those bouts of, of loneliness. And what I like to gently challenge my clients to do is even if you're feeling lonely now, what are things that you can do now that you are independent? What are things that you can do now to find that fulfillment and not have that fulfillment being a selected memory that may not exist or in a relationship that no longer serves you?

Bettina M Brown: And, you know, and in my own divorce, I had a therapist to deal with my past. Had a coach to deal with my present in my future. And I felt that that was very beneficial because yeah, we can always bring our past right into certain things. But that's a whole another issue right now. You're right now. What do you like if someone calls you for discovery call?

What are some things that you're looking for to, you know, to, or inform your potential client about?

Martha Bodyfelt: Absolutely. So, something I really kind of like to winnow down with is if we are compatible and if I can truly help I am bound to a code of ethics and just because somebody comes to me if I'm unable to help them, I can't take their money.

And so, what I look for is I do have kind of a list of questions just to kind of see if we're compatible. And the number one I ask is what is your biggest challenge right now? And if their biggest challenge is I don't know how I can afford a lawyer or I, my husband kicked me out and I don't know where my kids and I are going to go.

At that point, I am, I am not in a place to help that person. I can give them resources that, you know, with, with housing, I can give them, you know, resources with, you know, different sources of support like that. But I'm simply not able to help them with that. So, what I do look for as well when I'm dealing with clients is if they're very self-focused, if they're saying something along the lines of I feel stuck, I can't get through this, I'm not sure what to do to me that that's important.

And that's kind of the impetus for a conversation. If, however, a prospective client comes to me and it's just complaining about their expert ex husband. You know, he's a jerk. He left the kids of me. You know what a blankety blank, blank. I might offer them to another resource, but if they're just dealing and they're in a hateful place and that's all that they're focusing on, unfortunately I'm not going to be the person to work with.

So, what I do actually look for is if they are talking about their feeling stuck, if there are things that they've actually tried already. To feel stuck because if they're not willing to do the work, the deep work to kind of dig in and take ownership of what they're going through, I may not be able to help them.

And so, I say that those were probably the main things that if they're, if they're focused on themselves, and that's, that's where I need them to be. And if they're willing to do the work. And so those are the I would say the foundational questions that I,  asked them when we have that discovery call to see if we're, we're compatible with one another.

Bettina M Brown: And I think you know, as, as a, as a life coach for me, I'm a Christian life coach. And having been on this side and been on the other, sometimes you think the coach is just raw, raw, raw.

Bettina M Brown: But really the job is to, is that we have some answers within us and our coach is helping us. Bring them to the surface so we can see them because ultimately, we need to.

And with many, especially professionals where you're trying to achieve, achieve, achieve, you can't achieve yourself into a successful marriage

Bettina M Brown: with that, do you feel with your, the women that you're dealing with, with the professional women, that they're struggling because what works in other aspects of their life did not work in their relationship.

Martha Bodyfelt: Absolutely. And it's almost like you're a fly on the wall. I'm having conversations with my clients. And I like to gently remind them that you, you can't checklist yourself out of a problem. You can't checklist yourself into, into recovery. And that is something that I deal with.

I'm working with women that are, who are lawyers, who are business owners, who are realtors. Who are the top of their game in, in any of the fields that they're in, that's a commonality. And they really truly believe that if I just do X, Y, Z, I'm going to feel better. And we really kind of dig into that, that what are the reasons that you believe that?

What are the reasons that you think that that's true? What examples have you actually been successful at that in your personal life? And what we discover working together is. All of my clients, I can't even say most of them, but all of my clients are people pleasers. And that comes from a very young [00:14:00] age that in order to get the validation or even feeling love from, from their parents, they got the straight A's.

They made sure that their brothers and sisters were taken care of. They made sure that their shoes were always tied and that they were helping their mom. And so, they carry that with being the straight A student. They carry that with. You know, excelling in athletics or student council and then doing well in school and then marrying the perfect guy and doing everything that society told them to do because that's what they were conditioned to do.

And when that falls apart, for whatever reason, they're lost because they think I did everything I was supposed to do. I upheld my end of the bargain, or at least what society was telling me to do. I then over backwards, I sacrificed my own happiness. I don't even know what I want. And. It's no wonder why they feel stuck because they did that checklist, they did everything and that has worked for them to get the clients in their business that has worked with them to [00:15:00] climb up the corporate ladder, but that doesn't.

That system that they're operating on, which is very male and patriarchal driven, isn't necessarily helping them in their own recovery. And so, what I do as part of what I call the Lionheart method is we really kind of dig into those hidden beliefs that they're operating from. And then once we get there, and that's what we always see, it's the people pleasing because they're deriving their self-worth from a system that was put on them.

Once we rewire that DNA that says, no, I am worthy. I'm, I don't need somebody. to validate me. I validate myself. Then we have that foundation where then they can go off and find happiness. And their definition of success, not with a checklist, not with what society told them, but with their very own intuition.

And it's powerful. And we have that. And I feel unfortunately that our society has kind of erased that from us. And sometimes it takes a traumatic event such as a, but I think when we were talking about. If we can rewire our DNA, especially women who have tried to checklist their way out of out of out of their checklist in their way to life.

Once we can. rewire that to say, no, you don't need to do that anymore. And if you try, you're going to continue to feel stuck and miserable and unable to move on. Once we can start really getting them to use their intuition, everything changes and they don't feel that checklist anymore. And they transfer that in their personal relationships.

They transfer it with their grown children. They transfer it at work. And that's what I absolutely love. That's, that's, that's, that's why I love being a coach is seeing that, that You know, someone who's done everything for everybody else, telling people no. And that's not something a checklist or, you know, the road to success or the map to success can, can, can teach you.

Bettina M Brown: Yeah, no, it really, it really can't. And learning to say no is really saying yes to yourself. Absolutely. And that can be, and in that [00:17:00] yes to yourself, it's understanding that You are not everyone's cup of tea or everyone's cup of coffee and that is acceptable and vice versa. And, and, and with that too, you know, do some of your clients feel that the divorce is over, but they don't miss the partner, but they miss aspects of it, that that is what pulls them back.

Martha Bodyfelt: Absolutely. And I think it's they miss what I hear is the most common thing I hear is I miss just Somebody in the home on a Sunday, just somebody to drink coffee with and somebody to read the paper with or, you know, have the TV on in the background. I miss a companionship and I sometimes I challenge that that if you miss a companionship, what are ways that that you could find that again?

Or what are ways that you can rewrite the story to make a Sunday Your own tradition that you [00:18:00] can do that. And when we do that type of work of challenging what they really miss that really kind of helps them do a whole mindset change of, you know what, maybe, maybe I don't actually miss that person. And these things that I thought I missed, such as a companionship, such as somebody to talk to.

What if I can find that someplace else? What if I can find that with a good friend? What if I can find that connecting with a family member that I haven't talked to in a while? And so that is the work that we do when they do miss certain things that they thought they could only get from their partner.

We soon realize that when you open your mind and you do a little bit more of kind of, I like to call it like curiosity, like intellectual curiosity, They find that there are other sources to get those things that they felt they could only get from a partner, even if that partner in that relationship no longer served them.

Bettina M Brown: Yeah. And I think that's important to say sometimes people no longer serve you. Sometimes you're married to that person. Sometimes they're friends and sometimes that happens. It's not just I don't think it's a whole bunch of selfishness especially, you know, I, I think if people would go through divorce before they were married, they would marry differently.

It's just absolutely, it's so traumatic and it doesn't matter if it was the right thing for both of them or not. It is. It is definitely trouble now, speaking of, you know, one big thing that people talk about is, well what are, are you going to get back into dating? And some, some, I don't, some of my friends, I can't tell you which boyfriend they're on.

Like, I don't know. I'm like, Oh, this is a new one. That was last one. Yeah. 

Martha Bodyfelt: Okay. What's his name? Yes. 

Bettina M Brown: And I didn't start learning them too deeply. And then others are like almost afraid that they've written it off for the rest of their life.

Martha Bodyfelt: What do you see? And so I love that you're asking me this, Bettina, because I have lived both of those lives that right.

And I,  was divorced pretty young. I was divorced by the time I was 30. And so I was that person probably for a good year that just went as they say where I'm from hog wild. And was looking for love in all the wrong places and was just a different boyfriend or dating. You know, I might have had three dates lined up on one Saturday and just all of that.

And I just remember her. That made me feel terrible and it, a couple of years of doing that and a couple of years of having relationships with people that did not serve me and they weren't healthy relationships post divorce, I actually took a good two years off. And, and didn't date at all. And I just wanted to focus on myself, wanted to focus on relationships with friends and family, and really kind of looking into my own mental health, my own physical health my work situation, and that really, really helped.

And that really helped ground me for when I was ready to date again, I was able to actually have standards and actually be Selective. And that's something that I find with a lot of women who, who I'm working with who are in their fifties, who, you know, who haven't dated since the Clinton administration.

And they're not, they're not sure what to do. And so, a lot of times it goes back, what I've noticed too, there's some societal conditioning that they say, well, This guy, you know, he wrote me a letter on, you know, on, on match. I that's, that's, that's a, that's a, that's the online dating of, choice for my clients in their fifties.

Well, he wrote me a letter, you know, on match, should I write him back? And so my response is, well, what do you think? Should you write him back? You know, cause as coaches, obviously we, we, we do not tell our clients what to do. We introduce them to new ways of thinking, but they always have the answer themselves.

And what I realized with, Clients who are not sure how to date, that's fine because nobody knows how to date, but let's, let's be honest, we're all, we're all just out on these streets trying to figure things out, but I like to encourage my clients to develop their own standards, that what is it that you really want in a guy, and I'll get the things that, well, he has to be 6'1 and he has to be making a certain amount of money, and he can't have kids at home, and all these things, I said, well, let's be honest.

Let's, let's, let's dig a little deeper. These are very surface level things. And were these not the standards that you had when you met your husband? And then they stop and they're like, Oh, I think these were the standards. It's like, well, let's, let's maybe kind of dig. What are we looking for instead, you know?

And so I'll have a homework assignment for clients who do want to date that. How do I want my, my perspective partner to make me feel, what is it that I didn't have in my previous relationship with my partner that I would like to explore with a new partner? And if they can't answer those types of questions, I.

Encourage them to maybe I don't tell them not to date, but I encourage them to maybe get to know themselves a little bit more or maybe [00:23:00] start doing things for themselves first and kind of having a romance for themselves. And so should I date? Should I not date? I say with the client, there is no timeline.

But I really kind of encourage my clients to have standards developed and have boundaries and empower them to realize that just because somebody says hi to you, you don't really owe them anything if you're not attracted to them. But what is very kind of rewarding is when I am working with my clients who are dating, they're starting to tap into their power.

For example, I had a client who said, I didn't like how this man kept interrupting me during my date. It made me feel very uncomfortable. So, I said, well, what are you, what's running through your head? And they say, well, I didn't like that because that's what my ex-husband would do. And so, kind of the conversations we have are, how could you handle this situation?

And so, they say, well, I just don't want to deal with this person at all. I said, well, you have that decision and it's your power to say to this person, [00:24:00] you know, I don't think we're a match, but good luck out there. Or it's your decision as well to say, Hey I'd really like to share this story with you.

So it is all about communication. And it's not just communication with a prospective partner, but it's having that communication with yourself. What do I want? What's in my best interest? What's going to make me feel happy? And for a lot of women in their 50s, They've never been given those skills. They've never been told, and there's, and I think it's getting better with generations, with younger women, but, you know, a lot of them were never given that.

Because it was just, you're here to have children, and you're here to be a good wife, and that's all you're good for. And there's, that's a very toxic, very heartbreaking narrative that a lot of women that are operating on, that really gets amplified after divorce. And so I really kind of encourage my clients to reflect on that before they date again.

At what is it in your best interest? What's going to make your heart sing? And also, kind of the seminal question I ask is, If you never meet anybody again and you're single for the rest of your life, how fulfilling will your life be? Do you have friends? Do you have hobbies? Do you have work that makes your heart sing?

Do you have a purpose? And if they say, well, yeah, I mean, I would like someone, but I have all these other great things in my life. That is when I say, I think you're ready to date because when somebody is entering, Oh, a partner is going to fix all my problems and they're going into dating, they're operating on a deficit.

And they are going to be doomed to make the same mistakes that happened that may have contributed to their divorce. And so we're all about building, my work as a divorce recovery coach is to teach the women to really see that they're whole and to bring that out and then do what they want with the rest of their lives.

So that's really kind of what lights me up I guess. 

Bettina M Brown: I can tell because I get to see you and I can see that you [00:26:00] light up with this because of the, the light up in your own clients that you see. Thank you. So that is awesome. I love that you talked about women having standards because I think as a professional woman to be told you may not have standards is kind of, but it is the truth.

And it's not always a truth that you want to admit to yourself because you're like, oh, this fits, but you never identify truly what your value, what you deep down value, what is important to you. And so. You never gave that person the chance to meet up to your standards because you didn't know where standards were in the first place.

So, it actually is almost easier to date because you know, right away, like, no, no, you know, or a lot sooner, not two years into it or I'll give it a chance. I'll 

Martha Bodyfelt: wait. Like, no, I don't know. No, no. And I like to say in, in my own kind of post. Divorce, dating, kind of [00:27:00] misadventures, mishaps, those are very, those are generous words to describe a couple of years when I was kind of kind of wandering around in the desert in the dark.

I can't remember, I'm a Catholic school dropout, I can't remember what Bible story that was, but I think there was one about somebody wandering around in the desert. At any rate, that's... Oh, okay, oh my god, that's so many.

I hope my mom doesn't listen to this. I was confirmed and everything to so at any rate I guess what I like to tell them kind of the guidance set. I realize worked for me because when I work with my clients, I like to share kind of some personal stories of, you know, these are mistakes I made or let me tell you what, let me tell you a side story.

But what I realized sometimes is I don't know what my standards are. What I like to ask folks, especially, you know, what my clients is, okay, what is it that you don't want? Because naming what you don't want is equally as important as naming what you do want. So for [00:28:00] example with that, with my client that, well I don't like how he interrupted me all the time, how he talked over me.

That's a great freaking standard to have. That, hey, I don't want somebody to overpower me. I don't want somebody to treat me like I'm not their equal. And so, that's a great standard. And so, from what you don't want, then you can build on what is it that I do want. Okay, I want someone who's going to respect me.

I want someone who's going to treat me like an equal. So, I think when people find, especially with women, well, what do you, well, geez, I, I guess I don't have a standard. Well, let's work on what is it you don't want because everybody, I don't care who you are. Everybody knows what they don't want. And I think that's a wonderful foundation then to start building on your standards for dating and for life in general, I think, as a as a divorced woman.

Absolutely. 

Bettina M Brown: And so I like to ask this question to people that I get to have a conversation with, [00:29:00] because the podcast is called In The Rising. Where do you see yourself rising to, or how are you going to continue your development to work in the world that. makes your heart sing. 

Martha Bodyfelt: So, I just continue myself to that wasn't even English, but I see myself just getting the message out there that reaching as many women in their 50s who are divorced as I can to say, you are worthy.

There's nothing wrong with you because you're divorced at 50. This is the best time to be divorced. You are strong. You are capable of so much. You're incredible. And to just show them within themselves that they don't They don't need more than that. They're not less than because they don't have a partner.

And if a time comes that they do want a date, having taught them and empowered them to give them the skills where they do feel fulfilled, where they do feel incredibly fearless about their life, where they've completely rewired those toxic narratives that made them feel stuck and have now a completely new set of narratives.

Of being empowered of knowing that they're good with relationships of knowing that they're worthy of love and they don't need external validation and help them build up those healthy narratives so they can go the rest of their lives with those and not fall back into these toxic narratives that society and an unhealthy marriage gave them and so for me I see kind of with the with the concept of rising is Transcribed Rising by raising my voice and getting that message out to, to, to more women dealing with mental health issues after, after their divorce, when they feel stuck, I think that's wonderful.

Bettina M Brown: 

You're going to make even more of an impact in every, you know, because of statistics, you know, every person that you work with, when they change the people around them, see that change. And if they're in that same space of stock. They have different resources because eventually it's like, well, how did you get, you know, eventually it's like, I want what you have.

So, I think you're making a huge impact and gosh, Arthur, thank you so much for your time today. This is super, super awesome. I really enjoyed this. And yeah, I, I think, you know, teaching everyone to be totally fearless. I think you've got that going on for you.

Martha Bodyfelt: So, thank you so much. And for any of your readers who are interested, I would definitely invite you to go visit the website, Martha body felt.

com. It's M a R T H a B O D Y F E L T. com. And there, you can take a quiz to find out what's really keeping you stuck after your divorce. So I would, I would love to have your, your guests, come and come and give us a visit at that website. 

Bettina M Brown:  So there were so many. important parts of her conversation, but what Martha did is she found some value from her own experience and helps professional women and helps professional women move forward.

And the part that resonated with me was checklists, you know, like you can't checklist your way through any relationship work or personal. And so I really enjoyed and actually gained some insight into different things. If you find this. Conversation of value. I encourage you to leave a five-star review or share it and share it.

And so this gets into the hands and the ears of those that it can really make an impact for. And until next time, let's keep building one another up.