Features Overview

Rachel: How To Have A Good Divorce

Rachel told me, “I’m a washed-up housewife with no skills.” She said flippantly, in a half-joking manner, the one that often reveals our deepest truths but is covered in something else. I recognized a common narrative. I call it, “I don’t know what I want and feel stuck. “

We met in a group storytelling course, She was a participant and I was a co-leader. She had good reasons to believe her old story (our minds can always collect that evidence). Her inner critic (that meany-mean voice that lives in our heads) was able to verify this old story by sharing, “I left my career to have children.” and “I’m completely financially dependant on my husband.”

Later, I’d learned that Rachel had been a successful television producer and even worked with the BBC. In the years after she left her career, she continued collecting stories for hospice groups and worked with humanitarian organizations. She excelled in connecting with people and drawing out stories from their their life.

She already knew a lot about storytelling. But she hadn’t yet learned how her “inner gremlin” story was keeping her stuck and uninspired.

During our final project together, Rachel sent me a project she was working on– a story I hadn’t heard before. I opened the audio file she sent and hit play as her voice filled my headset. It was a vulnerable, self-interview where Rachel shared the possibility of going through a divorce and spoke the D-word out loud for the first time. The power of her voice and her vulnerability in going through a common human experience was palpable. I was left crying at my desk in the middle of the day.

When Rachel told me that she wanted to make a podcast (one that would help her and others better navigate divorce), I knew this was something the world needed. She envisioned a resource where she interviewed experts, shared parts of her own experience, and built a community of people who were dealing with the reality of divorce but also looking to de-couple in a healthy way for their children, partners, and their own personal happiness.

Within a year of working together, Rachel produced A Good Divorce. I helped her incorporate that first interview, story structure, and basic audio editing techniques into the first few episodes. Then she was off and running on her own. She’s been able to promote the podcast on BBC, be featured in Stella magazine, and was mentioned in Therapy Today. But more importantly, she’s been able to navigate her divorce and tell her story on her own terms in ways that feel right for her.

Rachel is still a human. She struggles with bits of that old story like how to monetize the podcast and what exactly she’s going to do next. But her new story gives her confidence (and physical evidence) that she has all the skills to figure out her next, right strep. Her story is proof that when we start to tell ourselves a new story, we begin to think and act differently. It’s the key to getting un-stuck and moving forward.

Hear more about Rachel’s experience (in her own words) here.