The Stay or Go Podcast for Women Considering Divorce

Britta Jo
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Stay or Go is the bold, no-BS space where women on the edge of divorce find clarity, courage, and the unapologetic power to choose their future. stayorgo.substack.com

  1. Can a Woman Change Her Stars? — Journal Entries from the Before

    5D AGO

    Can a Woman Change Her Stars? — Journal Entries from the Before

    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit stayorgo.substack.com In this deeply personal episode, I take you back to the earliest days of my own journey—before I made the decision to divorce. Through sharing two intimate journal entries from 2017, you’ll step inside my inner world at a time when my future felt uncertain, and yet a quiet, insistent voice inside me whispered, “You can change your stars.” These entries are raw and unfiltered. One captures the first flickers of awakening, a moment when I glimpsed what real love, real home, and real alignment could feel like. The other reflects the doubt, confusion, and self-questioning that followed soon after. Together, they reveal how nonlinear, layered, and sacred this process of transformation truly is. This episode is for any woman who finds herself in the “before”—the place where hope feels distant and clarity feels just out of reach. It’s a reminder that you’re not alone, that your feelings are valid, and that even in the darkness, there is power in trusting your own soul’s knowing. My hope is that these reflections illuminate your path as you navigate your own questions and challenges. I want you to see what’s possible when you follow those soul calls—when you allow yourself to believe, even if only faintly at first, that a different life might be available to you. Show Notes: Subscribe to Stay or Go on Substack A Knight’s Tale Text 90MIN to 33777 to book a 90-Minute Session with me. ✨ Text STAYORGOCOMMUNITY to 33777 to join the community. ⚡️ Text EMAILME to 33777 for the free tarot guide using ChatGPT. 💫 YouTube Channel The Deep Dive - 3 Month One-on-One Coaching Intensive Stay or Go Community Instagram Facebook

    16 min
  2. From Fog to Freedom: Understanding Narcissistic Abuse with Pare Underwood

    NOV 4

    From Fog to Freedom: Understanding Narcissistic Abuse with Pare Underwood

    If you’re anything like I was, you’re holding it together on the outside, while silently unraveling on the inside. You’ve tried therapy. You’ve tried harder. You’ve read the books and done the journaling. But something still feels off in your marriage—and you can’t quite name what it is. In this episode, I sit down with the woman who first helped me name it. My former counselor, Paré Underwood, was the person who gently—without ever pushing—began to walk me back to myself. At the time, I didn’t realize I was in a narcissistically abusive relationship. I just thought I was failing. As a wife. As a mother. As a human being. We talk about what narcissistic abuse actually looks and feels like from the inside, and why it so often goes unrecognized—especially by professionals. If you’ve been in therapy for years and no one has helped you put the pieces together, this conversation will hit home. We explore the small, subtle signs: the self-doubt, the second-guessing, the way you slowly lose access to your own inner voice. We also dive into what makes women more vulnerable to repeating these dynamics in future relationships, and how to protect yourself without having to shut down your softness or your empathy. Paré shares how she gently helps clients begin to reclaim their thoughts, their preferences, and their reality—even in marriages where there’s no visible “incident” to point to. This one is deeply personal. It’s for those of you who feel exhausted and confused but still unsure. For those who are wondering, “Is it me?” and quietly suspecting the answer might be no. If you’re starting to consider divorce but feel like your own instincts have been turned against you, this conversation will bring clarity—and hopefully, some relief. Show Notes: Subscribe to Stay or Go on Substack The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists: Coping with the One-Way Relationship in Work, Love, and Family - Eleanor Payson Paré’s Information: Website Paré’s Resource for Examples of Verbal, Emotional, and Physical Abuse Text 90MIN to 33777 to book a 90-Minute Session with me. ✨ Text STAYORGOCOMMUNITY to 33777 to join the community. ⚡️ Text EMAILME to 33777 for the free tarot guide using ChatGPT. 💫 YouTube Channel The Deep Dive - 3 Month One-on-One Coaching Intensive Stay or Go Community Instagram Facebook This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stayorgo.substack.com/subscribe

    1h 10m
  3. The Cost of the Call: When Choosing Yourself Feels Like Losing Everything

    OCT 28

    The Cost of the Call: When Choosing Yourself Feels Like Losing Everything

    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit stayorgo.substack.com This week, I’m bringing you into something that’s been sitting heavy on my heart. It’s a conversation I’ve touched on before, but never like this. I want to talk about what it really costs to follow your soul calls. Not the pretty version, but the actual lived experience. The kind that feels like your life is unraveling and you’re not sure who you’ll be…

    15 min
  4. Our Futures Are Unwritten: Trusting the Mystery

    OCT 21

    Our Futures Are Unwritten: Trusting the Mystery

    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit stayorgo.substack.com There are moments in life when the future feels like a wide-open wilderness—unmapped, uncertain, and at times, terrifying. In this episode, I speak from that raw, unfiltered place. This is a deeply personal and present-time transmission, recorded just after attending a No Kings protest that left me both cracked open and powerfully emboldened. What poured through was more than just reflection on current events. It became a call to reimagine the stories we’re telling ourselves about our lives, our choices, and the future of our world. I share why I believe, now more than ever, that our futures, both individually and collectively, are unwritten. That no matter how much fear or resignation may surround us, we still hold the pen. Whether you’re watching global systems shake or standing at the edge of your own unknown in a marriage that no longer feels like home, this episode is an invitation to stop outsourcing your certainty to history, to others, or to fear. Instead, I offer a path toward presence, toward living the questions, and toward trusting in the slow, often sacred, unfolding of your own becoming. This is for you if you’ve been feeling overwhelmed by the weight of everything, or if you’ve been waiting for a sign that it’s okay not to have all the answers. It’s okay to not know. It’s okay to trust the mystery. Show Notes: Subscribe to Stay or Go on Substack Zachary Helton Reel No Kings Rally Reel Jen Hatmaker Reel No Kings Rally Reel Download the Substack App Text 90MIN to 33777 to book a 90-Minute Session with me. ✨ Text STAYORGOCOMMUNITY to 33777 to join the community. ⚡️ Text EMAILME to 33777 for the free tarot guide using ChatGPT. 💫 YouTube Channel The Deep Dive - 3 Month One-on-One Coaching Intensive Stay or Go Community Instagram Facebook

    15 min
  5. Every Woman Needs This: The Power of Female Community

    OCT 14

    Every Woman Needs This: The Power of Female Community

    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit stayorgo.substack.com After hosting our first Stay or Go retreat, I sat down with my best friend and behind-the-scenes soul-sister, Quinn, to unpack what we experienced and what it revealed about the kind of connection women are craving, now more than ever. This episode is not just a reflection on one powerful weekend. It’s an invitation to consider what becomes possible when we stop trying to do life alone. We talk about the difference between performative connection and the kind that regulates your nervous system, that lets you exhale, that reminds you you’re not too much and never have been. It’s the kind of connection that arises when women come together in spaces where there’s no power-over, no fixing, and no pressure to perform. We explore the grief that often comes with disconnection—even the disconnections we choose, like divorce or estrangement and how the pain isn’t always about getting it wrong, but about being wired for attachment in a world that has taught us to suppress it. We speak to the cultural systems—patriarchy, capitalism, hyper-individualism—that have stripped women of the community they’re built for, and what it means to reclaim that. Whether you’re still in your marriage, already out, or just beginning to whisper the question—this conversation is for the woman who’s tired of white-knuckling her way through life. It’s for the woman who’s ready to be witnessed, to be held, to be reminded that connection isn’t a bonus. It’s essential. And it’s waiting for you. Show Notes: Subscribe to Stay or Go on Substack Strong Ground - Brene Brown The Rise & Fall of Capitalism - Diabolical Lies Instagram Reel Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation: The U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory on the Healing Effects of Social Connection and Community. - Surgeon General’s Advisory Doing Almost Anything is Better With Friends, Research Finds - Washington Post Davis AJ, Crittenden B, Cohen E. Effects of social support on performance outputs and perceived difficulty during physical exercise. Physiol Behav. 2021 Oct 1;239:113490. doi: 10.1016/j.physbeh.2021.113490. Epub 2021 Jun 15. PMID: 34139269. The role of social support and social identification in challenge and threat, perceived stress, and life satisfaction. Jamie C. Gillman, Martin J. Turner, Matthew J. Slater First published: 11 July 2024 https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12982 Download the Substack App Text 90MIN to 33777 to book a 90-Minute Session with me. ✨ Text STAYORGOCOMMUNITY to 33777 to join the community. ⚡️ Text EMAILME to 33777 for the free tarot guide using ChatGPT. 💫 YouTube Channel The Deep Dive - 3 Month One-on-One Coaching Intensive Stay or Go Community Instagram Facebook

    15 min
  6. Why Leaving the “Good Guy” Feels So Hard

    OCT 7

    Why Leaving the “Good Guy” Feels So Hard

    This episode is the culmination of a three-part exploration into one of the most emotionally tangled questions I see women face: Should I stay, or is it okay to leave... even if he’s a good man? If you haven’t read the two preceding articles on Substack, I urge you to begin there. Those pieces lay the emotional and historical groundwork for what we’re unraveling here. In today’s conversation, I shift into a different energy—one of empathy, nuance, and quiet truth-telling. This is the softer side of the good guy dilemma. Less fire, more warmth. Because I know what it’s like to be caught in that mental and emotional spin. I lived it. And I know how isolating and confusing it can be when the relationship looks enviable from the outside, but on the inside, something in you feels like it’s slowly dying. Together, we dive into the subtle, and not-so-subtle, ways that codependency, patriarchal programming, and inherited narratives shape how we think about partnership, sacrifice, and what we’re allowed to want. I walk you through four major thought patterns that keep women stuck in indecision, and I gently challenge the beliefs that whisper, “You’re selfish,” or “You’re asking for too much.” But most of all, this episode is an offering of grounding. Of helping you see your thoughts for what they are—just thoughts—and giving you tools to start rewriting your story from a place of self-love and personal truth. We talk about grief. We talk about discomfort. We talk about how to hold the reality that he might be a “good guy” and not the right fit for the life you feel called toward. And I share what ultimately helped me untangle my own knot of guilt, fear, and hope years ago. This is not about telling you what to do. It’s about helping you get clear enough to choose—truly choose—for yourself. So if you’re in the middle of this dilemma, come sit with me. Let’s sift through the noise together. Show Notes: Subscribe to Stay or Go on Substack Why I Wish Every Woman Getting a Divorce was Divorcing “The Good Guy” The Paradox (and Privilege) of Divorcing “The Good Guy” Untamed - Glennon Doyle “Descansos” Chapter 12 - Marking Territory: The Boundaries of Rage & Forgiveness - Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype - Clarissa Pinkola Estés Inside Out Download the Substack App Text 90MIN to 33777 to book a 90-Minute Session with me. ✨Text STAYORGOCOMMUNITY to 33777 to join the community. ⚡️Text EMAILME to 33777 for the free tarot guide using ChatGPT. 💫 YouTube Channel The Deep Dive - 3 Month One-on-One Coaching Intensive Stay or Go Community Instagram Facebook This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stayorgo.substack.com/subscribe

    1h 37m
  7. Six Years Out: 7 Things I Never Expected After Divorce

    SEP 23

    Six Years Out: 7 Things I Never Expected After Divorce

    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit stayorgo.substack.com It’s been six years since I made one of the hardest decision of my life and walked away from my marriage. I didn’t have a roadmap. I didn’t know what the future would hold. I only knew that the life I was living no longer reflected who I truly was. This week, I’m honoring what I now call my Divorceversary by sharing the seven most unexpected truths that have unfolded since that day. Some of them are painful. Some are quietly miraculous. All of them have shaped me in ways I couldn’t have imagined. I open up about the raw financial realities of rebuilding after divorce and the crazy turn of events that led to me keeping my home when I was sure I wouldn’t. I speak honestly about the moment I lost myself in an abusive relationship again—even after leaving. And I celebrate the parts of my life that have bloomed in ways I didn’t know were possible, including the healing of my relationship with my body, my sexuality, and the kind of love I never thought I’d get to live with each and every day now. This episode is for every woman who is wondering what might happen if she chooses herself. It is a reflection on what it means to lose the life you thought you were supposed to have and discover the life that was waiting for you all along. It’s not a perfect journey. But it’s real. And more than anything, it’s yours to write. Show Notes: Subscribe to Stay or Go on Substack Download the Substack App Text 90MIN to 33777 to book a 90-Minute Session with me. ✨Text STAYORGOCOMMUNITY to 33777 to join the community. ⚡️Text EMAILME to 33777 for the free tarot guide using ChatGPT. 💫 YouTube Channel The Deep Dive - 3 Month One-on-One Coaching Intensive Stay or Go Community Instagram Facebook

    15 min
  8. Bonus Episode - Your Post-Flashback Reality: Why It Matters So Much

    SEP 19 · BONUS

    Bonus Episode - Your Post-Flashback Reality: Why It Matters So Much

    This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit stayorgo.substack.com In this unedited bonus episode, I share the dissonance of being dropped into an old mental and emotional room I once lived in every day, and the profound relief of realizing: I don’t live there anymore. I’ll talk about what real love looks like when it’s rooted in autonomy, not control. I share the journal entry that grounded me back in the life I’ve built—one full of peace, connection, and agency. And I offer this episode as a mirror for those of you who still find yourselves living in rooms that don’t feel safe, hoping it helps you catch the vision of what's possible. This is a clarion call from the other side: your reality can change.

    7 min
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Stay or Go is the bold, no-BS space where women on the edge of divorce find clarity, courage, and the unapologetic power to choose their future. stayorgo.substack.com

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