The Thrive After Divorce Podcast

Alexandra Niel
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  • Personal Journals

You kept it all together. The career, the kids, the household, the appearances. And then the marriage ended, and maybe you were the one who ended it, and suddenly all that holding-it-together energy had nowhere to go. So you did what you always do. You figured it out. You moved forward. You made things happen. And yet... something still feels off. Like you're rebuilding the life but not quite yourself. You're running the same patterns, yours, your mother's, her mother's, just in a new chapter. That's what this podcast is about. The Thrive After Divorce Podcast is a space for real, honest conversations about what it actually takes to rebuild after divorce, not just your schedule and your finances, but your identity, your patterns, and the version of yourself you want to lead with from here. I'm Alexandra Niel, a divorce recovery coach. I've been through my own divorce. I've done the work of untangling who I was from who I was performing. And I've been walking women through that same process, watching what actually shifts when they stop pushing through and start paying attention. Here's the thing: most women don't need more motivation. They need clarity. They need to understand why they keep ending up in the same place despite doing everything right. They need permission to stop performing competence long enough to ask what they actually want. Each episode, whether it's a solo conversation or a guest interview, is designed to give you exactly that. Clarity on where you are. Tools to work with what's keeping you stuck. And real talk about what rebuilding from a strong foundation actually looks like, not from the same blueprint that got you here. This isn't a show about starting over because you're not starting over. You are starting with everything you've already lived, learned, and come through, and that is a very different thing. If you're a woman who gave a lot to your career, your relationship, your family, and somewhere along the way, you stopped being at the top of that list, this show is for you. New episodes every Wednesday. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.

Episodes

  1. Jul 15

    Why You Keep Attracting the Wrong Men After Divorce with Joan Nwosu

    If you've done the work, read the books, followed the advice, and still find yourself in the same patterns with the wrong people, this episode is going to feel like a relief. Joan Nwosu has been engaged eight times. One divorce. Years of following every dating framework that existed. And what she discovered along the way is that the problem was never effort. It was trying to attract love from a version of herself that wasn't really her. Joan is a dating coach who recently integrated human design into her work after noticing something her clients kept telling her: the advice works, but it doesn't feel like me. That one sentence changed everything about how she helps women date after divorce. In this conversation, we talk about what human design actually is and why it matters more than any dating checklist, the difference between love languages and love gates and why one goes so much deeper than the other, what happens when you're operating from your "not self" in relationships and why you keep attracting the same type of person no matter how much inner work you think you've done, and why burying yourself in your career after divorce feels productive but isn't the whole answer. We also get into something I don't talk about enough: how showing up in full masculine energy at work and then bringing that same energy home contributed to the unraveling of my own marriage. Joan names it in a way that's going to land for a lot of you. Her parting message: your divorce wasn't a failure. It was a reactivation. The question is what you do with it from here. Joan also has a free human design dating archetype report for listeners — drop us a message to get access.

  2. Jul 8

    Your Sexual Awakening After Divorce with Lorna Gale

    Lorna Gale left a 30-year marriage at 63 to step fully into work she could no longer ignore. What led her there wasn't a dramatic falling out. It was the quiet, persistent realization that staying meant slowly disappearing. Lorna is a somatic sexologist and what she calls a sex and spirit alchemist of the feminine-led life. Her work sits at the intersection of body, sexuality, and spiritual reclamation and it was born directly out of her own journey of disconnection, awakening, and choosing herself. This conversation goes places most divorce podcasts don't. We talk about what it means to grow up believing your body isn't yours and how that belief silently shapes every relationship you enter, why so many women arrive at divorce completely disconnected from their own desires, not just from their partner, the difference between yin feminine, yang feminine, yin masculine, and yang masculine and why understanding all four changes how you see yourself, what it actually looks like to reclaim your erotic life force energy after years of suppressing it and why that has nothing to do with sex and everything to do with power, and the tree in the pot, Lorna's image for what it feels like to stay in a container you've outgrown. She also says something that landed hard for me personally: everything we judge in our partners is a mirror. Every single thing. That one is worth sitting with long after this episode ends. Lorna's message to women coming out of divorce: you don't need to find your other half out there. Come home first. Use everything outside you as a mirror. The treasure was here the whole time.

  3. Jul 1

    Your Worth Was Never Theirs to Take with Lynda Talley

    Lynda Talley spent decades navigating abuse — and when she finally left her marriage, she was standing in the shower when she felt it: a sense of release, a glimpse of what her life was actually supposed to look like. The moment she walked out of that bathroom, everything blew up. But she knew she was worth more than what was waiting for her on the other side of that door. That moment set her on a path of healing that led to CPTSD diagnosis, therapy, and eventually the work she does now — helping women find their voice, understand their power, and come back to themselves. Lynda is the creator of Discover Your Radiance. In this conversation we get into the kind of inner work that doesn't come with a timeline. We talk about  What grounding actually means and the simplest place to start when everything feels like it's spiralingWhy society's boxes quietly steal your powerWhat it takes to stop performing who you're supposed to beThe difference between awareness and actually doing the work and why those two things rarely happen at the same timeWhy you need your own definition of success because someone else's definition will always feel like the wrong size, and Why your self-worth cannot be taken from you even when everything else has beenLynda also works with soul blueprints, Akashic records, and intuitive tools to help women understand who they are at a deeper level. If that language is new to you, she explains it in a way that's accessible and grounded. Her parting message: start with the mirror. Look yourself in the eye. Say "I am worthy." That's where it begins.

  4. Jun 24

    Stop Losing Yourself in Love with Ry Duong

    Ry Duong's parents escaped the Cambodian genocide. She spent nine years in a Thai refugee camp before her family was accepted into Canada. She lost her baby sister to depression at 30, a heartbreak that cracked Ry's world open and made her look hard at the 17-year marriage she was in. She filed for divorce. She started over. And she built a life and a relationship so intentional, so grounded in self-knowledge, that she says her partner is with her, not because she needs him, but because she chooses him. Every day. This conversation is about what comes after the hard work of healing and what a healthy relationship actually looks like when two whole people build one together. We talk about  Why love alone is not enough to make a relationship work and what actually isThe difference between being in a relationship with a giver versus a taker and how to know which one you're withWhy voicing what bothers you, gently, from the right energy, is the only thing that actually worksHow to create the kind of safety that lets a man step into his best selfWhy picking the right man first is non-negotiable, andThe mistake Ry made every time she fell in love and why she'll never do it againHer parting message: do your life. A man who is right for you will be drawn to a woman who is fully living hers. You are not the relationship. You are the woman the relationship gets to be part of.

  5. Jun 17

    Why New Habits Don't Stick After Divorce And What to Fix First

    You can download the habit tracker, start the morning routine, read all the books. And still find yourself right back where you started. That's what happens when you skip the foundation and that's the first thing needs fixing. In this solo episode I'm breaking down why creating new habits after divorce is harder than anyone tells you and what actually has to happen first before any of the outer work can stick. I share the framework I use with the women I work with: identify the habitual response you want to change, trace it back to its origin, rewrite the story attached to it, and then, and only then, build the new habits on top of that new foundation. Skip any of those steps and you're renovating a house with a cracked foundation. It looks good until it doesn't. I also share something personal: a belief I carried for years that food was safety, born from the loneliness of arriving in a new country at 15 and not knowing how to belong. And yes, some beliefs can take time to dismantle.  This episode is for the woman who keeps starting over and wondering why nothing holds. The answer isn't more discipline. It's deeper work, and it's absolutely doable. Grab your journal. You're going to want it for this one.

  6. Jun 10

    What Your Divorce Attorney Won't Tell You About Money with Donna Cates

    Most women going through divorce know they need a lawyer. What they don't always know is that the negotiation happening outside the courtroom, not inside it, is where the real financial decisions get made. And if you don't understand the numbers, you can't negotiate for what you actually deserve. Donna Cates has spent 25 years as a wealth manager working specifically with women in transition. Divorce is her specialty. And in this conversation, she gets into the financial realities that most people don't talk about until it's too late. We cover  What equitable distribution actually means, and why equal isn't always fairWhy your retirement account and your house are not the same asset even if they're worth the same on paperThe one document you should pull together before you ever say the word divorce out loudHow to start a financial conversation with your spouse when you've never had one, without triggering alarm bellsWhat to do when you have no idea what your household finances actually look like, and Why the negotiation process, not the courtroom, is where you keep control of your own lifeDonna also shares her own divorce story, coming home from a work trip to find her world turned upside down, and the pattern she kept repeating in relationships until she finally did the inner work to understand her part in it. Her parting message: don't be afraid of money. Make yourself a seat at the financial conversation table. Knowledge isn't intimidating. It's the thing that protects you.

  7. Jun 3

    When Your Body Keeps Sending You Signals with Tammy Scarlett

    Tammy Scarlett didn't go through one hard thing. She went through several: breast cancer, divorce, a capsule rupture from her implants that left her sicker than the cancer ever had, all within a few years of each other. And somewhere in the middle of all of it, she realized they weren't separate events. They were the same message, delivered louder each time. She just wasn't home enough to hear it. Tammy is the founder of the Women's Wellness Network and a student of holistic health whose work was born not from theory but from necessity, figuring out her own path when the conventional answers ran out. In this conversation, we get into the real stuff. We talk about: What it means to walk side by side with your own life instead of actually living itWhy the body starts sending signals when you've been disconnected too long and what happens when you keep ignoring themThe moment Tammy asked herself what her part was in the demise of her marriage and why that question changed everythingOne surprisingly simple language shift that rewired how she thought about what she wanted, and How to start identifying your blind spots by looking at how you respond when you're in fear, fight, flight, or freeze.She also talks about GUS, her name for God, universe, spirit, and the slow, deliberate work of learning to hear her own voice again after years of dismissing it. Her parting message: figure out how you show up in fear. Start there. Everything else, your relationships, your choices, your healing, flows from that one piece of awareness.

  8. May 27

    Your Divorce Was Not a Coincidence with Sara Fishkin

    The day Sara Fishkin stood in her shower, everything had fallen apart. Her marriage was over. And in that moment, instead of collapsing further into it, something shifted. She decided to stop being the victim of her story and get curious about what was in it for her. What she found changed everything, including what she does now. Sara is a transformational mindset and prosperity coach whose work is built on one core idea: your subconscious patterns, the ones you picked up in childhood, the ones modeled by your parents, the ones you never consciously chose, are running the show. And until you change the film, the movie on the screen stays the same. In this conversation, we go deep. We talk about how Sara's divorce played out as an almost exact replica of her parents' divorce and why that's not a coincidence, what it actually means that your behaviors in marriage were mostly automatic, not intentional, the difference between watching your life and leading it and the moment both of us realized we'd been doing the former, why saying yes to a marriage when you're not fully in it is itself a generational pattern and how we pass that down without knowing it, and what it looks like to work at the level of subconscious belief rather than just mindset or motivation. Sara uses an analogy that's going to stick with you: the old-fashioned movie projector. The light is always shining. The question is what film you're running through it. Her message to women newly out of divorce: it can be pretty dark at the beginning. But if you can just start asking, what's the gift in this?, it becomes able to find you.

  9. May 27

    You Can't Heal What You Won't Feel with Louise Cartwright

    Louise was ready to leave her marriage before she even walked down the aisle. Fear kept her there for years. Fear of being alone, of breaking up her family, of what people would think. The day her husband finally moved out, she drove her kids to nursery school and noticed something she hadn't felt in years: a real smile. Not a performance. The actual thing. That moment set off twenty years of becoming from personal trainer, to studio owner, to Certified High Performance and Somatic coach, and a lot of hard-won clarity about why we stay stuck long after we know better. Louise is a mind-body coach who combines somatics with high performance coaching to help women release what they've been carrying in their bodies, not just their minds, for years. And in this conversation, she is as honest as it gets. We talk about what it actually means to hold trauma in your body and why you can't think your way out of it. Why achieving more, more certifications, more credentials, more results, still left her feeling like it wasn't enough. What somatic work looks like in practice and the moment she realized something had genuinely shifted. We talk about the question she asks every woman she works with: what do you really, really want?, how to know when you're giving yourself a dishonest answer, and why stop gatekeeping other people's emotions might be the most important thing you hear today. She also says something about her children that I think is going to stay with you: she could still see the impact of her first marriage on her kids, now in their mid-twenties. Not as a guilt trip. As a reminder of what's actually at stake when we stay too long. Her parting message: you will always figure it out. And if the divorce wasn't your choice, the only question worth asking is, how could this be the best thing that's ever happened to me?

  10. May 4

    The 5 Stages of Grief After Divorce And Why the Process Isn't What You Think

    Grief doesn't wait for the divorce to be final. For many women, it starts long before the papers are signed, sometimes before the decision is even spoken out loud. In this episode, I'm walking you through the five stages of grief after divorce: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. But here's what I want you to know going in: the process is not linear. You'll move forward, loop back, and sometimes sit in two stages at the same time. That's not you doing it wrong. That's just how it works. I share what each stage actually looked like for me, including the moment I felt sucker punched by my own decision, the marriage counseling request that came ten years too late, and how I ate my way through depression (not my finest chapter, but a real one). I also cover the coping strategies that genuinely help, and the ones that feel like help but aren't. If you're in the thick of it right now, this episode is your reminder that you're human and that you're moving through something that deserves to be moved through, not around.

  • 10 Episodes

About

You kept it all together. The career, the kids, the household, the appearances. And then the marriage ended, and maybe you were the one who ended it, and suddenly all that holding-it-together energy had nowhere to go. So you did what you always do. You figured it out. You moved forward. You made things happen. And yet... something still feels off. Like you're rebuilding the life but not quite yourself. You're running the same patterns, yours, your mother's, her mother's, just in a new chapter. That's what this podcast is about. The Thrive After Divorce Podcast is a space for real, honest conversations about what it actually takes to rebuild after divorce, not just your schedule and your finances, but your identity, your patterns, and the version of yourself you want to lead with from here. I'm Alexandra Niel, a divorce recovery coach. I've been through my own divorce. I've done the work of untangling who I was from who I was performing. And I've been walking women through that same process, watching what actually shifts when they stop pushing through and start paying attention. Here's the thing: most women don't need more motivation. They need clarity. They need to understand why they keep ending up in the same place despite doing everything right. They need permission to stop performing competence long enough to ask what they actually want. Each episode, whether it's a solo conversation or a guest interview, is designed to give you exactly that. Clarity on where you are. Tools to work with what's keeping you stuck. And real talk about what rebuilding from a strong foundation actually looks like, not from the same blueprint that got you here. This isn't a show about starting over because you're not starting over. You are starting with everything you've already lived, learned, and come through, and that is a very different thing. If you're a woman who gave a lot to your career, your relationship, your family, and somewhere along the way, you stopped being at the top of that list, this show is for you. New episodes every Wednesday. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.

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