Divorced People Nicole M. Quallen

Rebecca Feinglos is bringing grief guidance to the masses. After losing her father and her marriage in the early days of COVID, Rebecca boldly took a year off of her work in NC government and policy, declaring the time her much-needed and deserved "grieve leave." And she's been thinking, writing, and sharing about the topic of grief ever since.
I have been hearing the word grief more and more each day, both in just mainstream conversation and in my divorce work. It's not a new experience, but it does seem to be having a new kind of attention and increased clarity. It feels so lucky and serendipitous that Rebecca is also here in Durham, NC and that we got to have this conversation. Listen in to hear about Rebecca's intense stories of loss and emotion, transformation, and a dogged pursuit of peace and meaning. 

Kamara Thomas is a wise wise woman. A true artist and mother, tarot reader and playright, Virgo queen and now, a divorced person.
This episode is spiritual sustenance and food for your faith muscles. Faith in yourself, faith in a healing spirit, and faith in humanity. Kamara shares the story of knowing it was time to end her toxic marriage, working through a cancer diagnosis during her separation, and finding meaning in it all in very short order. 
Please enjoy the generosity, love, tenderness, and wisdom of this episode. 
 
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Samantha Falk is a divorced person, co-parent, and communications professional. Sam's divorce began about 7 years ago, with an acute incident you'll hear about in the episode. An instinct to protect her children from verbal violence led Sam to divorce, and it was not a short or easy process. These days Sam is still working to protect her teenage sons, enjoying a happy and new second marriage, and writing a book about divorce with her divorce lawyer, Rain Henderson.
Rain Henderson is in the process of winding down her 30 year career as a divorce litigator in Vancouver, BC. She is not a divorced person herself, but she has seen thousands of divorces go through the Canadian court system. Rain describes her reputation as being the attorney folks seek when all other less aggressive avenues for divorce have failed. A "baracuda" she says. She guided Sam through her rough divorce, and is now working with Sam on a book that helps prepare folks for legal divorce both emotionally and logistically. Her take on the behind-the-scenes of litigation and her career is fascinating.
Take in tips about self-care during divorce and beyond, peek behind the curtain of divorce litigation, and witness the renaissance of Sam as she claims her health and happiness and walks through "hellfires" to do it.
 
Join our Patreon to support this art and support work! https://www.patreon.com/divorcedpeople
 
You can find Sam here: https://www.samfalk.com/
You can find Rain here: https://www.hhlaw.ca/our-lawyers/rain-henderson/
You can find Nicole here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolequallen/ 

Heather Gray is about 6 years past her divorce. She has brilliant clarity on why it was the right call, how to do better in her second marriage, and the worst part of it all (not seeing her kids all the time). There was no wild infidelity, no dramatic addiction, none of the storylines we like to see as ’excuses’ for divorce, but for Heather the math just didn’t add up anymore for what the marriage took versus what it gave.

Poet, and now memoirist, Maggie Smith has made the messy middle of her divorce into a stunning and captivating piece of art: You Could Make This Place Beautiful, her newest book. Maggie's marriage began its formal ending in 2018, and she has been processing the experience in so many ways, including some of my favorite writings on the topic. (I give her book "Keep Moving" to loads of new clients who are in the roughest starts of their journeys and her Modern Love column took my breath away in the earliest days of my own separation)
Listen as Maggie and I discuss marriage culture, wedding culture, small town culture, and why she is suspicious of the "before and after" transformation narrative. Maggie inspires the hell out of me when it comes to "the messy middle" of divorce, before there is a shiny new healed version of life, and also about just being radically, beautifully honest about... everything. This conversation just scratches the surface of what Maggie shares in her stunning book, so please get your hands on a copy of it. It's truly a gift and so are you, Maggie Smith!
 
New book: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/You-Could-Make-This-Place-Beautiful/Maggie-Smith/9781982185855 
The gorgeous poem, Good Bones, that took Maggie's work viral: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/89897/good-bones
Modern Love piece: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/04/style/modern-love-end-of-marriage-google-maps.html 

Karen McMahon is the founder of Journey Beyond Divorce, a podcast and divorce coaching practice, and Karen has seen some sh%t! Karen is wise and kind and fun and funny and we had a blast sharing her long, incredibly difficult, and ultimately triumphant story.
Karen began her divorce process 20 years ago, and is just now sharing her story for the first time in such detail. We talk about what it looked like to raise her children from elementary school-age through their early adulthood, how to make the big big leap to leave, mantras for the times of self-doubt, and lots about the transformative power of tough times. 
 
You can find Karen and her podcast at:
https://www.jbddivorcesupport.com/
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/journey-beyond-divorce-podcast/id1261400624 
https://www.instagram.com/journey_beyond_divorce/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwBFif3L2M_Zn3lxl8AU8og