S2 Ep11: Stories from the Other Side with Shelly Starks
Dec 13, 2023
In this week’s episode of The Crazy Ex-Wives Club, host Erica Bennett sits down with Shelly Starks for a heart-to-heart discussion about moving forward from divorce with grace. Shelly shares her personal journey of separating her ex-husband's roles as a spouse and father, her path to emotional independence, and her steps to foster positive co-parenting.
Together, they delve into the importance of clear communication, managing expectations, and focusing on the well-being of their children. The episode wraps up with insights into self-care, the "51% rule," and a reminder of the support and growth that can blossom from the challenges of divorce. Don't miss these inspiring stories and strategies for navigating life post-divorce.
Full Transcripts Below
Learn More About This Week's Guest: Shelly Starks
Shelly is the CEO/President of Inline Consulting Services, LLC. a communications coaching business for small & midsize businesses.
A Pillar in Coaching and Business Advising - With an impressive tenure of over 20 years in both Extended DISC® behavioral analysis coaching and business advising, Shelly Starks has been an instrumental force for business coaching with a focus on internal and external communications.
The "Super Connector" - Shelly has been building her network for over 20+ years, with an unparalleled flair for bridging gaps. Her role as a trusted advisor has transformed countless professional journeys connecting businesses and professionals with crucial resources and opportunities.
Motivated by real impact and results that matter - For her clients, the real measure of success is in the tangible progress they achieve. By understanding behavioral styles and honing in on team dynamics, businesses can unlock avenues for scalable growth. Collaborating with Inline Consulting provides clarity and direction, ensuring every strategy implemented positions your business for greater success for years to come.
SPECIAL OFFER FOR LISTENERS
20% off an Extended DISC personal assessment
FREE Extended DISC family team assessment report (with the purchase of discounted individual assessments).
Stories from the Other Side with Shelly Starks FULL TRANSCRIPTS
Erica Bennett [00:00:00]:
Hello. Welcome to another episode of The Crazy Ex Wives Club. I'm your host, Erica, and today I have my friend Shelly with me. I am super excited for Shelly to share her divorce transformation, how she got through it, what she wants you guys to know, and where it's led her today. So let's get started.
Erica Bennett [00:00:21]:
Welcome to the Crazy Ex Wives Club, a podcast dedicated to helping women navigate the emotional journey that is divorce. I'm your host, Erica, and if you're trying to figure out life after the Big D, welcome to the club. Whether you're contemplating divorce or dealing with the aftermath or any of the many phases in between, the club has got you covered. Each week you'll hear stories from women who have been in your shoes. This isn't about spilling tea on divorce details. This is about giving you the tools to take control of your own healing journey.
Erica Bennett [00:00:53]:
Listen in Weekly for advice, tips, and tools to help you move through each stage of the process.
Erica Bennett [00:01:01]:
Hey, guys. Welcome to this week's episode of the Crazy Ex Wives Club. Today I have my friend Shelly Starks from Inline Consulting Services with me as a fellow divorced woman, as an entrepreneur, as somebody who has done the gamut of different type of coaching and training and behavior-based roles and support, I'm super excited, Shelly, to have you with us today, not only to talk about your divorce story, but to really share with us some of the learnings and the key areas of expertise that you now bring to your clients in your world. So welcome.
Shelly Starks [00:01:36]:
Thank you for having me. I'm so excited. This is one of those things where are you really able to share something that's going to be a benefit to people. But I had an opportunity to listen to several of your podcasts recently, and I just love the concept. I just think having the support for other divorced women when you feel so alone in so many different ways, if you're going through it, and then sometimes it just comes back up later, just to have something to be like, you know what? While I'm on my walk today, I'm going to listen to this podcast, and it's so great to be able to help other people in their need.
Erica Bennett [00:02:16]:
Well, thank you for sharing that. And it is true, you guys. I mean, I can't tell you how many times it's divorced women that are like, okay, I'm silently listening, right? And I'm like, oh, come on the show. Oh, I can't. Either it's who is my story really going to help? Or I'm not ready to share it. And that's okay, right? We all get to a point when we're finally ready to share our story. But I want you to know that your story matters because it does feel so alienating. It does feel so alone when you're in it.
Erica Bennett [00:02:48]:
I didn't have another friend who understood. And just being able to tune in and listen to these transformation episodes to hear from another woman who did get through it can really give you a lot of hope. So shameless plug so go to thecrazyxwivesclub.com and sign up to be a guest. I am looking for more real-life women to just share their story. What did you struggle with? What advice would you have to give? It truly helps support other women, women that you might never meet. But they will listen to your story and they know, listen to it over and over and take it with them.
Erica Bennett [00:03:25]:
So thanks, Shelly, for showing up and being that guest for us today.
Shelly Starks [00:03:28]:
You're welcome. But I do love that it's not about putting down the other party. It's literally, how are we going to lift each other up? And that's so important, especially now after COVID.
Erica Bennett [00:03:42]:
Yeah, there's no point. I mean, God, I had my years where I was bitter and I was blameful and I was angry at him. And that's why it took me a while to tell my story, because I really, truly wanted to come to a place of like, hey, this actually is the best option. And you can know it's the best option. Logically, you can know. Even heartfelt, I knew that doesn't mean it didn't stir up all the grief and all the anger and all the irritability, the hatred of, like, how could you do this to me? And being able to do that's the healing journey, guys, letting that stuff go. Because the only person that it hurt was me. The only person that knew that I was irritated and pissed off and bitter was me.
Erica Bennett [00:04:24]:
I'm the one that then found more things to be irritated about instead of less. He's off in his own world. He's like, la la. He has no idea. Shelley, tell us your story. What was your divorce story and your kind of transformation?
Shelly Starks [00:04:42]:
So I met my ex husband in high school. I was 15 when we started dating. He was pretty much my very first serious boyfriend. We dated all through high school. He was two years ahead of me in school. So he graduated, went to college. I stayed back, graduated, went to a couple of years of college. But we got engaged when I was still in high school.
Shelly Starks [00:05:05]:
So here I am, like, 18 years old, and we got engaged. Still can't believe my parents let me do that. But it was with the promise that we were going to wait a couple more years to get married. And so here we fast forward. We have one daughter. We did lose her twin, and so there was a lot of stress on our relationship from early on. And our daughter that did make it, her esophagus did not connect to her stomach. And so her health journey was really hard for her, for me, for him, for us as a family unit.
Shelly Starks [00:05:37]:
And so later on, as I went through my healing journey with my therapist, I learned a lot about what kind of pressure that put on the relationship for us to kind of go separate ways or start to build separate lives just because we were literally ships in the night taking care of this for a good ten years with all of her medical stuff. But eventually he ended up, he had an affair and did leave and did end up marrying this person. So this person is still in the family dynamic. So again, very hard. My daughter was twelve when he asked to separate and it was at Christmas time. So accumulation of all of the different things. And one of the things that hit me really hard was I had gone from living at home as a teenager to living at home for a couple of years in college and then getting married and moving in with someone and then having not ever living on my own. So the fear gripped me like, you cannot imagine.
Shelly Starks [00:06:43]:
When he said, this is it. I'm like, I never lived on my own. I don't know how to do this. And now my twelve year old doesn't want to have anything to do with him because of the situation. So I'm all of a sudden going to be solo single mom. And it was hard, I mean, really hard on top of the emotional roller coaster to have to be there for her as a parent to provide for us financially, which I didn't know where that was going to come from. I mean, again, I have to think, like, if I had never lived on my own, I had no idea what it took to survive on my own. So it was really hard there for a while, but I committed to going to counseling twice a week.
Shelly Starks [00:07:27]:
I found a really wonderful woman who would counsel my daughter and would counsel me and then counsel us together. That was her model as a family therapist. And I had to get her dad to commit to also go into counseling with her so that we could do this together. Because the hardest part to remember when you have kids in a divorce is to separate the man as a husband and the man as a dad. Yeah, really hard. And I knew he was a good dad. He just was a really shitty husband on this occasion when all this happened. And so I had to be careful how I portrayed that to her, my daughter, in that situation.
Shelly Starks [00:08:09]:
So we spent a lot of time healing us, years and years and years. And I remember the day that he came to the door after being in therapy for years. I opened the door, and I felt nothing. I literally felt nothing. It scared me so bad, Erica, that I slammed the door in his face. I didn't know what was happening. I was like, wait a second. I normally feel something when I see him because we spent 20 years together.
Erica Bennett [00:08:44]:
Yeah.
Shelly Starks [00:08:45]:
And all of a sudden, I went back to my therapist, and she said, Shelley, you did it. You don't need me anymore. And I was like, wait a second. Hold on. You're interweaved into my life twice a week. What do you mean? I'm coming back here. I am not going without this. I needed this all this time.
Shelly Starks [00:09:04]:
So that got us to that piece, and it was really hard to find my legs and find my foundation in different ways than what you just said. Normally, you feel isolated, and I felt isolated, but I actually had, like, six girlfriends going through a divorce at the same time. It was just the age group. And the hardest part for me was I didn't have it in me to be there for them.
Erica Bennett [00:09:31]:
Yeah, you just dropped a lot of things. Right. I was like, good Lord, how am I going to unwind all these points? But I think the awareness for having a child with extra medical needs, developmental needs, emotional needs, whatever it is, when you have a kid that falls outside of what society calls the quote unquote normal spectrum of a kid needing a parent, it puts so much pressure on that immediate family. And as a society, we aren't set to support that family in anything, really. That's just a whole, like, where the village used to raise a child, and you'd have other moms, and other moms would divide and conquer the meals, and other moms would divide and conquer watching the kids so you could get the errands done, and now it's literally you and the husband, you and the partner, whatever that relationship partnership looks like. And it takes more than two. And so it's a huge stress. We don't have the systems in place to support it, and a lot of those relationships do end in divorce.
Erica Bennett [00:10:35]:
So now you have extreme needs from your kids, which kids are hard anyways, you guys, if you don't have kids, nobody tells you that it's so damn hard. Yeah, they're like, oh, yes, it's the most beautiful thing. And seeing your baby sleeping and smelling their head and it's so joyful. Okay, you guys, it's freaking hard. It's exhausting. To your second point, you had your own healing journey. This is a thing that happened to you, but this is now also a thing that happened to your daughter. And so now you're in the middle of trying to heal yourself.
Erica Bennett [00:11:09]:
You're playing this dual role that I'm hurting and broken, and yet I still need to have enough strength to show up for you and be there for you because you're trying to navigate through it as well. And it just adds this whole layer of complexity.
Shelly Starks [00:11:23]:
Not to mention the twelve to 20 of a girl, like a teenage girl.
Erica Bennett [00:11:29]:
It's not good.
Shelly Starks [00:11:31]:
They do not prepare you for that, for sure.
Erica Bennett [00:11:35]:
Yes, I got one boy. So there will be no navigating the crazy teenage years of a girl.
Shelly Starks [00:11:41]:
But I cannot even tell you. And of course, fast forward after several years and we ended up being a blended family, and I ended up getting what I call my bonus daughter. I love her very much. Brittany. I had Abigail, and then all of a sudden there were two and they were only children and they were teenage girls and they had four parents, and we had a whole new family that was. That was just a whole other navigation piece. And that could be another podcast, is to talk about teenage girls.
Erica Bennett [00:12:11]:
Right. Just teenage girls. Right. I was going to say, yeah, coparenting is a season that's coming up. We got a season on co-parenting. But yeah, girls in general, just. I remember those years. I'm sure I was not easy.
Erica Bennett [00:12:26]:
Sure my mom on. But anyways, we digress. I think one of the other things that I really loved you saying, and I'd love to hear more about how you did it, was separating the husband from the father. Because so often in the majority of the divorces I see, right, parents, they start acting like kids. Not to call you out, but I'm going to call you out. You guys get divorced and you become so nasty to your ex and you think that it's okay to talk trash about them in front of your kids or even not in front of your kids, right? You're on the phone talking to your girlfriend because you need to vent, which is a valid need, right. It is a valid space, but your kids overhear it. And the desire to prove that you're right feel validated and that they did something wrong to you.
Erica Bennett [00:13:18]:
And that's probably the hardest thing to carry through a divorce, is that you actually have to put aside all those desires to hurt this person as bad as they hurt you because there's a kid involved and the father daughter or father son in my instance story is more important than that. So do you have any real life tips on how you separated the two? How did you put it aside so that you could show up for your daughter?
Shelly Starks [00:13:47]:
I can't take credit for it because my therapist was just an incredible woman. She was a little bit older and she had been a family therapist for a long time, and she just said you know Shelly and I wasn't ever that person that was going to be that way as an innate thing. Although hurt people hurt.
Erica Bennett [00:14:05]:
Right.
Shelly Starks [00:14:06]:
So you typically are going to have more emotion around that, and that's going to come out in a lot of different ways. And it's normal. It's the normal grief process that you go through because you literally have to grieve. You had 20 years that you spent with someone, and now that is. I mean, it's not gone, but it's not there. And it's definitely not buildable. And so she just would say to know, Shelly, here's the deal. Especially girls with their dads, girls with their dads that shapes and forms who they are as an adult woman.
Shelly Starks [00:14:38]:
And daddy issues is a real thing. I mean, we always joke about it, but it's a real thing. And it comes from the fact that there was something that happened during that time period, that they were missing some kind of structure from the male figure in their life. And she just impressed on me that I had the actual major responsibility of bringing and showing up and showing her that her dad relationship is something that she needed to invest in. That was the hardest thing that I did for years and years and years, from twelve to 20. I encouraged her. I'd call him and give him, this is what's going on in her life. Because every time they'd sit down and have dinner, it was all very.
Shelly Starks [00:15:20]:
Just sad and gloom. And this isn't the life I wanted. Or he'd cry because he had regrets. But I'm like, you got to talk to her about her life. You got to still invest in her. And, Abigail, you've got to turn around and invest in this relationship with your dad because you need.
Erica Bennett [00:15:36]:
Yeah.
Shelly Starks [00:15:36]:
So it became more of, I turned it around into, I need to do something for her. This is what I can do. I can't fix the marriage. I can't fix him. I can't fix the situation. What I can control. That's the thing. Separate the things you can and cannot control.
Shelly Starks [00:15:56]:
What you can control is the interaction with them. Now, if they don't show up as a good dad, that's a whole nother whammy. That's a different thing. But when you have an arrangement, which a lot of you out there do, where he is a good dad but maybe not a great husband, the best gift you can give your kids is to push them towards him for a relationship and help him. I had something come up. I'll share this. I had something that happened. I started dating the guy that I'm with now for eight years.
Shelly Starks [00:16:26]:
The first time we met, I was kind of complaining about something because he had a similar divorce situation, and I was kind of complaining that the ex wasn't doing what he was supposed to do, or he wasn't showing up when he was supposed to show up, or how can he not figure this out? And just in the couple of times we had met, he said, you know what I noticed. And I said, what? He goes, for 20 years, you've ran the show. You've told him where to go, you've told him what to do. You've told him how to do it. And now that you're not in that role anymore, you're expecting him just to figure it out.
Erica Bennett [00:17:01]:
Yes.
Shelly Starks [00:17:02]:
This is a huge disconnect.
Erica Bennett [00:17:05]:
Huge disconnect. And I was just writing a note to make sure we bring it back to so often married couples as well. I see it a ton specific to parenting. The woman has a lot of expectations of how the dad needs to show up, and then he doesn't show up that way. He's got his own way or he's not quite sure. Relationships, especially like a father daughter, there's a different level of comfort, right? Every kid kind of leans into more of the mom. The mom has been that motherly role. That was their role.
Erica Bennett [00:17:38]:
And the dad has to figure out how to have that relationship. But when the mom, whether married or divorced, continues to show up to tell him how he's doing it wrong, he stops trying. He stops trying to figure it out on his own and instead is like, well, just tell me what to do. And if you then get divorced, and now that connection is broken, that that female figure is not now telling him how to do or making them have a relationship, you add into it that this kid going through divorce, they got a lot of feels, too. They're angry and they're upset and they're hurt and hurt people hurt people, and they're reacting. And so we have to be able to let go of having set expectations of how we want that person to show up and let them be the parent that they're trying to be.
Shelly Starks [00:18:26]:
Yeah, but you can guide a little bit. I would just get frustrated that he didn't come up with these things on his own. Like, why do I have to fix this for him? Right? But then when my significant other, he is now, when we were dating, he was like, you don't understand, this is what the dynamic was. And now you're expecting him to do something he's never done before. So you're going to have to give him a little bit of grace on that side. And that really hit me hard. Originally, I was not happy about this. I was like, how dare you tell me it's my responsibility to do his side, too.
Shelly Starks [00:19:00]:
But really what I realized later was that he's absolutely right. So I started feeding him information, helping him understand what's going on in her life, helping him to say, here's an event, I'm not going to come to that event because I don't want to make it uncomfortable. You take her to that event, you go for her sporting event with her on this one, and you guys bond on this. So I ended up taking that role back a little bit until he could start understanding what that would look like. And it really changed the dynamic. And I'll tell you, she's 23 now and she has a relationship with her dad. And if there's anything that I am going to say I am proud of during that whole entire thing was that I was able to separate those two things. And now, as an adult woman, she has a good relationship with her dad.
Shelly Starks [00:19:50]:
Is it still strained to some degree? Sure. It's always going to be that way until she grows up and has experiences to know how to compartmentalize that. But she just got engaged herself to a really wonderful man. And I just know for a fact that that was a layering effect that she needed to get her to the place where she's at now.
Erica Bennett [00:20:11]:
Yeah. Being the bridge, right? Making sure that you're keeping that path open is so important. That was a hard lesson I had, too. When I first started co parenting, I had a lot of expectations of how I expected him to show up in a co parent role, and I had to take a step back. But I also committed to for my son to never be the one that closed the communication, that made it difficult, like creating a bridge between two houses. Our doors were always open. To his dad, to his dad's fiance. Our house was built on love was built on like this.
Erica Bennett [00:20:49]:
Is still family and there's enough room for everybody and we're going to keep it open. And then we talked a lot about and they're going to do what they're going to do on their side, whether or not that's reciprocated. But I was like hell bent to never be that. I was the one that purposely caused the damage to my son and his relationship with his dad.
Shelly Starks [00:21:09]:
Yeah. And I hope that your listeners will hear this because this is a huge part of your healing. Because when your child, who is a part of you, starts healing and starts becoming more of a whole being and you got to contribute to that and you didn't take away from that as a mom, especially as a mom, that gives you a different level of accomplishment. And believe it or not, it feeds into your healing.
Erica Bennett [00:21:37]:
Yeah.
Erica Bennett [00:21:41]:
Hey guys, it's Erica. I want to personally invite you to join the Crazy Ex Wives Club cohort. This is a small group coaching program that I am thrilled to be leading. If you're a woman navigating the rocky waters of divorce, I know how challenging it can be and it's why I created this program. I truly believe it can make a difference in your journey. Each week we'll meet for 60 minutes and I'll be right there with you, guiding you through the healing transformation of the three phases from those uncertain moments in your marriage to the overwhelming after world of divorce. We're going to conquer it together. You'll learn how to line up to what you want.
Erica Bennett [00:22:19]:
You'll find yourself and you'll get your feet underneath you to thrive in your new world. And the group isn't just about coaching. It's about community. You'll have the chance to connect with others who understand what you're going through, and I'll be there to provide expert guidance and answer all of your questions. So if you're tired of feeling alone on the path, if you're ready to experience guided development, support and the warmth of a community that truly gets it, this is your invitation. Don't hesitate. Check out the details at thecrazyxwivesclub.com and take that first step towards healing and thriving.
Erica Bennett [00:22:54]:
I can't wait to meet you and be a part of your journey towards a brighter future. The Crazy Ex-Wives Club Cohort is your path to empowerment. So what are you waiting for? I promise you won't regret it. You guys go check it out and I can't wait to see you in the group.
Erica Bennett [00:23:11]:
The big thing too was that I couldn't control how the ex showed up but I could be there for my son. I could help my son understand that this was not about you, that if dad doesn't show up the way you want, that's not about you. He's got things going on in his life, too. He's an adult, and we don't know all the things. And the other thing I did was I would help my son, because the whole role in parenting is to set your kid up for success, right? You didn't have this kid for you to be happy. You didn't have this kid for you to cuddle with. We think we do, but this is not your role is to make sure that they thrive when they get to be an adult. And so we used to practice how to have the conversations with his dad because in the beginning, I would feed him that information, and sometimes it wouldn't come back the right way.
Erica Bennett [00:23:55]:
Right. It would almost be like tattling and coming back ineffectively. And so I was like, okay, to my son, I was like, I'm not going to betray our trust, but do you want to practice how you could have that conversation with dad? Do you want to talk through what you might say? And so all of these pieces of teaching that kid to understand that it's not your fault, and here's how you speak up for what you need and what you want was part of that learning journey. And it only happened when I let go of trying to control how his dad showed up.
Shelly Starks [00:24:22]:
Yeah, I mean, it's fantastic giving them some they don't know, what they don't know. And so you've had all the experience, you've had all of the things happen where you can have these adult conversations. Their reasoning, part of their brain, their frontal lobe is not developed till they're 25. So understand that they do not have a whole brain. I used to say this. I'm like, oh, okay, now I know why this is going sideways. You don't have a whole brain. But literally, I had to remember this whenever I'm like, this situation you're talking about what a great gift to give him because he wasn't going to connect the dots with the experience that he had to that point in the time in his life, no matter how old he was as a kid.
Erica Bennett [00:25:05]:
Yes. And some of you might be like, oh, but that's such an adult thing to put on a kid. You do it in levels that they're able to comprehend, right? Because he needed to understand that this was not your fault. That was, like, the first layer. And the second layer was he needed to understand that his feelings matter and he gets to voice them, then he had to understand that just because you voice your feelings doesn't mean things go your way, because we don't always get our way. But those are all lessons that he had to thrive through to be able to get to a stable place with his dad.
Shelly Starks [00:25:39]:
Yeah, absolutely.
Erica Bennett [00:25:40]:
I love that. So the other thing that I love, one of my favorite statements that I use a lot, too, right, is the opposite of love is not hate. It's indifference. And so when you shared that, you opened the door and you didn't feel anything. I think so often we think that, okay, I loved you intensely, and we were married, and now we're not Married. So the opposite of love is hate. And it's not because if you're still so angry at them, if you haven't learned how to let it go yet and done the healing work to let it go, it continues to hurt you. And so when you get to that neutral place where you letting go of the expectations, you become indifferent to how they show up.
Erica Bennett [00:26:20]:
You have boundaries, you have standards. You're not letting them walk all over you, but it just becomes a business transaction, a thing in the middle. And I think that's exactly what you were explaining when you're like, I opened the door. I didn't feel anything. I shut the door.
Shelly Starks [00:26:36]:
Shut the door. And then I opened the door, and I felt so bad. I was like, oh, sorry.
Erica Bennett [00:26:44]:
Be like, my bad. That's that one up. But it's also true that it all of a sudden just happens. It's funny that when you're doing the work to heal from such a big shift, the waves that come through all of a sudden, some days it feels like they never stop, and they're just beating you up and wave after wave of grief and anger and reminders and hurt, and then they start to come a little bit less. Or all of a sudden, it's like smooth sailing. And one hits you out of the blue and you're like, where is that coming from? But at the same time, all of a sudden, one day, you just go, wow, I haven't cried today.
Shelly Starks [00:27:24]:
Yes.
Erica Bennett [00:27:25]:
I haven't felt triggered by it. I haven't thought about it. It just becomes your new normal.
Shelly Starks [00:27:32]:
Absolutely.
Erica Bennett [00:27:33]:
Before we started recording, I was saying, I call it the 51% rule. Once you get to 51% of your time, your energy, your focus, your whatever, your momentum, focused on what you want versus what you don't want, then your little magnet is turned on, and more things will show up. But that climb from zero to 51 can feel really heavy and really hard. And sometimes it feels like it never ends. I just remember being like, how long am I going to climb out of this hole of grief and despair and pain over this end of the marriage? I wanted it. I knew I wanted it. I know we're in a better place. Why the hell am I crying on a Friday Night?
Shelly Starks [00:28:16]:
Yeah. But you know what's so interesting is that the time period that you invest in you right after when you're in grief, going to counseling, it was the best decision I ever made because I was able to talk through some of why I was feeling that way. And if it was just in my head and if I just had to process it myself, I was never going to come to the realization, like, you need to separate the husband from the dad. I would have never come up with that on my own. So a third party person, being able to give you some tools, it's really tools, right?
Erica Bennett [00:28:52]:
Yeah.
Shelly Starks [00:28:53]:
Being able to do that was invaluable to me. And I know for a fact that I have had to go back and revisit some of the things that she taught me because I journaled and I've had to go back and revisit that, but I've had to revisit them for other things that had nothing to do with my marriage.
Erica Bennett [00:29:10]:
Yeah.
Shelly Starks [00:29:11]:
I'm a lifelong learner. It's something that I love. It's something that drives me. I always want to be improving, and I looked at that as, that's just part of my tool bag that I'm putting together. Yeah. It really sucked to have to go through that and to have 20 years of my life that I thought was wasted. It wasn't wasted. I have a beautiful daughter.
Shelly Starks [00:29:33]:
But more importantly, in the relationship I'm in now, I know exactly where the things were that I own in that marriage. I didn't cause him to have an affair. That was his decision. But I did own some things in that relationship. And when I start going that direction again with my current relationship, I'm like, whoa, hang on. Red flag, right? I don't want to go there, because I know exactly where that takes me.
Erica Bennett [00:30:01]:
Yes. I have that same realization about, you see it come up, and all of a sudden, you're like, wait a second. This is what built into a very unhealthy pattern. I refuse to do this again. And it makes you have to grow again. It makes you have to go back and own. Okay, well, what are the pieces that are my business? What are the pieces that it's my own insecurity or my own trigger or my own thing that I'm not giving to myself, that I'm expecting from a partner. So the time is never wasted.
Erica Bennett [00:30:29]:
It definitely hurts.
Shelly Starks [00:30:30]:
I would like for your listeners to hear that, though, like, what you went through is not a waste of those years. I heard girlfriends after girlfriends after girlfriend saying, god, he took my best years from me. Well, you were living your life most likely in the best way that you knew how in that time period. Now you just have perspective. Now you just see what it could have been. But when you get on the other side of the healing side, now you start realizing, wait a second, now I have all these tools, now I can be an even better life. I can have an even better life.
Erica Bennett [00:31:09]:
Yeah. In every moment, you make the best decision you can at that time. And so there might be times where you're like, well, I'm really unhappy, but I'm not ready to leave or things aren't going well, but I'm not ready to change my behavior to create a new change in their behavior. So we all make the best decision we can, and you are always on your path, even when you think you're off or. I thought divorce really was like an end to the how was I ever going to get my life back on track? And the reality is that it brought me so much further. Once I did the work to move through the healing, once I stopped letting the emotions own me and I healed the emotions, I healed the crazy parts, right? I healed that part, then I could really become what I wanted. So there are tons of great therapists out there, you guys. That's the whole point of this podcast, is to give you access to insight, to help, to tools, to techniques.
Erica Bennett [00:32:02]:
I've got coaching as well as the group coaching program. There are so many resources out there. So find the one that feels like the right fit. Find the one that gives you the space, like you had with your therapist that you're like, I look forward to this time. This time is helping me, and I feel supported. So find the right fit for that, for sure. Well, before we run out of time on our podcast, why it always goes so fast, I wanted to talk to you about managing your energy, right, because it's a lot. You not only were getting into the divorce from a point of having all of your energy drained due to your child and the medical issues, but that has kind of when we were talking earlier about behavioral styles and how that fits with energy and so shed some light on this concept for people so that if they're struggling to figure out how they maintain their energy through all this, maybe this will help them see that there's different fits for different type of people.
Shelly Starks [00:33:02]:
So I have been behavioral analysis certified for over 20 years. Mind you, when you're in the moment, like a divorce, sometimes even the most qualified person loses all of that. So keep that as a side note. But having worked in counseling or in coaching for 20 years in a varying different areas, having just launched my new consulting business, inline consulting services, it's really all about behavioral styles and communications coaching. I am really passionate about helping people understand how to identify behavioral styles, even in your kids, your innate behavioral style, and then communicating in their style so they feel more comfortable. Those defensive gates go down and you have a more productive conversation, or even get through barriers in those conversations and don't get so defensive. But one of the things I've noticed over the years is that when we're a certain behavioral style, there are certain things that fills our energy tank. We need to find what those are.
Shelly Starks [00:34:06]:
Maybe it's going on a walk, maybe it's reading a book, maybe it's being with your girlfriends, maybe it's spending time with your child, understanding how their day went. And you know what fills your tank. You need to start filling that tank and overload that tank with things that feel good. Because there's going to be things in life, no matter what happens, that doesn't feel good and drains your energy tank. You could be having in a job that is an energy sucking job for you. You could have some people in your life that are vampires. That are sucking the life out of you and identifying that those are the people that are there. If you can't eliminate that, because maybe they're a family member, if you can't eliminate that, you've got to figure out you can't draw blood from a stone. Isn't that the saying like you can't take blood from a stone? So you can't pour into people, your family, your kids, your friends, even you, if you're not putting something back in that energy tank.
Shelly Starks [00:35:04]:
So understanding how to identify these styles is something I'm passionate about. And I am offering through my website, I'm offering a special for your listeners to be able to have 20% off of any assessment that they decide to take with that. I'm offering them a free family or team assessment so that if they do take the assessment, I can tell them how to best communicate internally with their family. And it's just something I'm really passionate about. I'm writing a book about it.
Erica Bennett [00:35:35]:
Oh, I can't wait.
Shelly Starks [00:35:36]:
I'm excited about the book.
Erica Bennett [00:35:38]:
Yeah. The thing is that if you know, there's a behavior you can do that pisses somebody off, then there's also a behavior you can do to make things go better, but we have to know what they are. So this is where it's the one, figure out yourself, and then two, figure out how you've got to interact with somebody else. And I think for myself, and what you said was, everybody's a little bit different. Going for a walk, or maybe you need to be alone. Maybe you need to socialize with somebody. Maybe you need to be around your kids. Maybe you need a break from your kids.
Erica Bennett [00:36:07]:
Don't let somebody else tell you what is the thing that should fill you up, exactly. You need to figure that out. And there are tons of options. I mean, I remember when I was going through divorce, I was getting a lot of pressure from some family members about how dare I be traveling, how dare I be away from my child? And I was like, look here, I need to take care of me so that he sees that it's okay to be, like, happy. To me, it was too much work. Sounds wrong, but it was heAvy. It was hard, right? I was doing deep healing work, and I couldn't also care for another human. I needed breaks, and so I would be full time parent.
Erica Bennett [00:36:44]:
Right. Because I wasn't dating. I was just taking care of my son and just getting through work and doing what I had to do. And then I needed to take care of me, and I needed to go away for the weekend, or I needed to bring my mom up and have her watch my son for a bit. I just knew that those things filled my bucket so that I could come back and I could really move the marker on my healing journey when I took that away time. But most people will be like, well, your children should be filling you up.
Shelly Starks [00:37:09]:
I mean, it's stressful. When you're a single parent, that's a stressful time. I don't care how good you are at it. I don't care what resources you have or don't have. It's stressful. And so when you can't be your best version of you, and this is something women struggle with every single day, feeling guilty that they are going to take some time for them. Yes. And it's not just about that.
Shelly Starks [00:37:32]:
Understand your tank, if it gets depleted and you're trying to pull something from a depleted tank, how good is it.
Erica Bennett [00:37:38]:
Going to be doesn't work. I love that. So I think to close our little session today, you guys, as you're out trying to figure out what fills up your tank, go out and do an activity. And then when you come back after that activity, sit and think about it and ask yourself, do I feel better or do I feel worse? I would be at home and I'd have so much alone time, right, that I would crave and not crave, but I'd be like, I need to go out. I need to be around people. I need to build something into my social calendar. And I would do it. And then I'd come home and I'd be even more tired and even more sad and even more alone feeling.
Erica Bennett [00:38:15]:
And I started to realize, like, that might not actually be doing what you think it's doing for you. And so go out, explore, try the things, and then afterwards, quietly reflect and say, wow, do I feel really energized or do I feel really tired? And you'll be able to start to build your list of what are those things? What is your behavioral style of how you need to recharge or how you need to take care of things. You can check out Shelly's website. I've got it included in the show notes for you guys so you can find that information. Thank you, Shellyy, for joining me today. Thank you for sharing your story.
Shelly Starks [00:38:47]:
Thank you, guys. I'm just so excited for what's going to happen for you and this podcast and the people you get to touch. So thanks for letting me be a part of it.
Erica Bennett [00:38:55]:
Absolutely. Well, until next week, you guys, take care. Give yourself some grace and go find one or two things that help you recharge your energy. We'll talk to you soon.
Erica Bennett [00:39:08]:
And that's it. Another great episode of the Crazy Ex Wives Club, a podcast for women learning how to heal from their divorce. Tune in next week for more advice and tips to help you figure out life after divorce. And until then, give yourself Grace. Do the best you can, and know that this is all part of the process.
