Ep 215: Thoughts vs. Facts: Reclaiming Your Power in Divorce

We've all been there—those moments during divorce when our minds spiral with thoughts that feel absolutely true: "I wasn't good enough," "I've ruined my children's lives," or "I'll never recover from this." But what if these certainties are simply stories your brain has constructed, not objective facts?

In this episode, I reveal how the thoughts dominating your divorce experience have been shaped by forces largely outside your control—biology, family conditioning, and societal expectations. Your brain, constantly seeking patterns and explanations, often manufactures meaning that aligns with these influences rather than reflecting reality.

When I faced my own divorce, society told me it would devastate my children and destroy my future. Instead of accepting this narrative, I consciously chose to define divorce differently—as growth, new beginnings, and ultimately a path to greater happiness. Years later, that decision has proven transformative not just for me, but for my entire family.

The power lies in recognizing that when we're stressed and emotionally overwhelmed, our primitive brain hijacks our reasoning abilities. Through a simple 3-5 minute writing practice I teach my clients, you can learn to distinguish between objective facts and subjective interpretations. This distinction creates space for choice—the choice to interpret your divorce and future differently.

This isn't about toxic positivity or ignoring genuine feelings. It's about recognizing that most thoughts causing your suffering aren't unassailable truths but interpretations you can question and replace. When you separate fact from story, you reclaim your power to chart your own course through divorce and beyond.

Ready to stop believing everything your brain tells you about your divorce? Try the practice outlined in this episode, or schedule a free 30-minute call with me to experience how liberating it feels to distinguish between what's happening and what it means.

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Grief and trauma are the two biggest struggles women deal with as they go through their divorce. It's highly likely that you are experiencing both and don't even realize what you're feeling. I'm here to tell you that it's okay for you to grieve your marriage (even if it was shitty) and it's normal to be experiencing some kind of trauma (which is essentially a disconnection from yourself - your mind, body and soul). I can help guide you through the grief in all of the forms it shows up so you can heal. I can also teach you how to ground yourself in healing so you can ease through the trauma. Schedule your free consult by clicking here.

Featured on this episode:

1. Interested in the Divorce Betrayal Transformation? Learn more here.

2. Are you lost and confused about who you are after divorce? Don't worry. I've got 51 Ways to Get to Know Yourself Again. Click here to download.

3. Want to work first hand with Karin so you can stop worrying about what your life will be like after divorce, and instead begin making it amazing today? Click here to schedule a consult to find out more about working 1:1 with Karin as your coach.

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Full Episode Transcript:

If you're a woman going through a divorce and you are just tired you're tired of being told it's your fault, you're tired of being made the bad one, you're tired of believing that you've ruined your life and your kids' lives Then Becoming you Again, this podcast, is for you. This is the podcast where you learn to step into your power as a woman in this world, where you learn to reconnect with your wholeness as a woman in this world. Where you learn to reconnect with your wholeness as a woman in this world. Where you learn to reconnect with your integrity and bring into alignment your brain, your body and your intuition. You are listening to Becoming you Again, episode number 215, and I am your host, karin Nelson. Welcome to Becoming you Again, the podcast where you learn to step into your power as a woman in this world, where you learn to reconnect to your wholeness, your integrity and bring into alignment your brain, your body and your intuition after divorce. This is the podcast where you learn to trust yourself again and move forward toward a life that you truly want. You are listening to Becoming you Again, and I am your host, karin Nelson. Welcome back to the podcast.

My lovely ladies, how is everyone doing? I hope. Overall, you're doing well. You are leaning more into trusting yourself, believing that you have power to make decisions in your own life, rather than taking a back seat. And if you're still struggling with that, that's okay. You're human. That's why you're here. It's why I'm putting out this podcast, because we all need love and support exactly where we're at, and I think sometimes, as women especially who are going through a divorce, we feel a lot of shame around our divorce.

We feel a lot of shame whether we're the ones who chose to leave or whether we were left. We feel shame. We don't want to tell people, we don't want to talk about it. When we do, when we do open up, very often we feel like we are the only ones that are going through this thing, that are going through this thing, that are going through a divorce. We tell ourselves that we are isolated because everybody else out there has all their shit figured out and we are the only ones that are struggling. And I want you to know that is not true. That is just a trick that our brain plays on us. You are not alone. You are not the only person who is going through a divorce. You are not the only person who is feeling the roller coaster of emotions that happened during divorce. There are so many of us out here who are experiencing it, who have experienced it and who know exactly what you're going through.

So I want you to know, if you don't have anybody that you feel like you can talk to, if you don't have anybody that you feel like you can talk to, if you don't have anybody that, when you talk to them, you feel like they understand in some way or they're always trying to talk you out of whatever it is that you're feeling, I want you to know that I am here for you. It's why I make this podcast, it's why I work with my clients and if you are struggling to have someone to hold you, to hold space for you, to understand you, to provide guidance and help and support all along the way, right next to you, basically holding your hand without actually holding your hand, that's what I'm for. I offer a 30 minute free zoom call where you can get on, you can tell me what you're going through and if I have some guidance that I can offer you on the call, I totally will, and we can decide while we're on the call if working together is something that you and I want to continue doing, but I want you to know that, no matter what, whether or not you decide that working with me is what you want to continue doing, or you decide that doing it on your own is what you want to continue doing, or you decide that doing it on your own is what you want to continue doing Either way, you are going to leave the 30 minutes with me feeling supported, feeling heard, feeling understood that, no matter what you decide, that 30 minutes will be gold to you, even if it's just to feel whole for 30 minutes. All right, my friends, you can schedule that free call by clicking the link in the description. You can go to my website. There's lots of different ways to find it and schedule it. I would love to talk to you. I would love to provide that love and safety and space for you to feel the support that you need right now as you're going through your divorce. All right On to today's podcast episode.

Let's talk about thoughts, like when I say it like that it's really funny, because do you guys remember that like old song where they're like let's talk about sex, baby. Let's talk about you and me. I probably don't have the words right. I am so bad with songs and words I even songs that I literally know I will still sing the song words wrong. So if I got them wrong, sorry, and also probably shouldn't actually be singing that on my podcast. I don't want to have to pay for, like you know, the rights to sing it. But anyway, I digress. Let's talk about thoughts. Reminds me of that hook for that song. It's kind of funny.

Okay, I don't know what's happening here, but this is where we're at. I'm just going off on a little tangent. It's a good morning. It's so beautiful outside, I'm recording my podcast, I'm talking to y'all, I'm just I'm happy to be here. And so today we are going to be talking about thoughts. I'm toying with a few ideas for titles at this point, which is pretty usual for me. I kind of have an idea of what I want and then sometimes I'll change it, sometimes it'll stick, but who knows what I'm actually going to land on until the day that I really decide.

But today I really want to focus on thoughts and how thoughts are subjective for the most part and how our thoughts differ from objective facts, because this is really important. Like we know, there's a huge difference between subjectivity and objectivity. Right, Subjectivity is like up for debate you might think one thing and I might think one thing, and even though they're different doesn't mean either of us are wrong, right. And then objective Like we've got objective facts that are facts, there is no dispute. Some people might try and dispute facts, but the thing is is they're facts and so they can't really be disputed. It's like what you take to a court of law and you have, like this is a picture of a gun that was used in the commission of this murder or whatever right that was used in the commission of this murder or whatever right. Yeah, that's a fact, that gun was used. Okay, so we got objective facts and we've got subjective thoughts. We're going to talk about it today Because here's the thing about thoughts Thoughts are interpretations.

We often think that every thought that enters our brain and that we are aware of is just truth. Our brain is just offering up this truth and that it's factual. But that is not actually what is going on. Our brain does not offer us, most of the time, thoughts that are factual. And what's really, really interesting is that you didn't even make up all of the thoughts that you think your brain didn't just create them out of nothing.

Your brains are shaped by three main sources. The first source is biology and genetics. So basically, that is like your primitive brain. I talk about the primitive brain a lot. It's like it's the most evolutionary part of your brain and its main goal is to focus on survival. That means keeping you alive and continuing to make more humans. That's its goal. So biology and genetics that's one of the sources that shapes your thoughts.

Then we've got family and relationships. So these are the people who raised you or took care of you and all of the dynamics that went into that as a child, all of the people who influenced you about what you think and believe. So it could be your family. It could be like, maybe, if you were very active in religion, like I was, it could be like your leaders that you met with during the week and on Sunday at church. It could be your teachers, right?

There's lots of different relationship influences that also shape our thoughts. And then the last one we have is society. Society has in many ways decided who and what you should be, what you're capable of, how you show up in the world, what's okay and what's not okay, etc. And you have soaked in these ideas which have shaped much of what's okay and what's not okay, et cetera. And you have soaked in these ideas which have shaped much of what you think and what you believe. So we have those three main sources that shape our thoughts and how we think about the world, and so all of this means that your thoughts have been shaped by many things outside of you that you had no control over, no control over.

So I want you to learn to recognize that these thoughts they've been ingrained in you over time and to be able to recognize that is going to help you overall understand that you don't have to accept any of the thoughts that don't align with you or your values, or your priorities, or your intuition and what your intuition is telling you. You don't have to. You can learn to consciously decide what you want to think and believe instead. Just because you've heard these things over and over and over for your whole life does not mean that they are facts, does not mean that they are good for you and your life and the direction that you are headed. So I'm going to talk about this as we go on, but I want to give you a quick example, just divorce related.

Society tells us that divorce is the worst thing that you could do for your family. Society tells us that divorce is terrible and that it ruins relationships. It ruins your kids, and your kids will grow up never knowing how to have successful, good, beautiful, strong relationships in their life. And that is a societal idea that has been given to you based on all of the things that you have seen and read throughout your life. It is not true. I am living proof that you can choose to believe something different if you want, because when I was going through a divorce, I decided that was not going to be me. I decided I did not accept that idea.

I did not want that to be my definition of divorce and what it meant for my life, and I have proven it over and over again for me. Now my kids get to decide for themselves what divorce means. My ex gets to decide for himself what divorce means, but for me, I decided that that is not what divorce means. To me, divorce means new beginnings. Divorce means growth. Divorce means happiness. Divorce means better life than before, and it has shown itself to me to be all of those things. Doesn't mean that divorce wasn't easy Doesn't mean that I didn't feel all of the emotions, doesn't mean that I didn't grieve. What it means is that I have a different definition and I take that with me as I move forward in my life. Divorce did not ruin me. Divorce did not ruin my kids' lives. Divorce did not ruin my outcome or my future or any of that. I look at divorce as one of the best things that I have experienced. So that's just a quick example of our brain telling us thoughts that we do not have to subscribe to if we do not want to.

Okay, so our brain is constantly working to take in all of the things that you see and all of the things that you encounter, and all of the things that you see and all the things that you encounter and all the things that you experience, and then it interprets those things to make meaning, because our brains are meaning making machines. I often say this they are meaning making machines, and that in and of itself is so beautiful and so fascinating. But the important thing to understand here is that all of the meaning that our brain feeds us, it isn't always factual and it isn't always objective, because our brain is taking the three main influences that have shaped us, those three things that I just talked about, and it is using those, along with everything else that you are living and thinking and experiencing and seeing, and then making up stories to give it meaning. That means something to us, right? It is so easy to think that our brains are just telling us factual and objective information, but that is not the truth. Like you may have been thinking that for your whole marriage, you just weren't good enough. You weren't a good enough wife, because if you were, you wouldn't be going through a divorce. A good enough wife doesn't go through a divorce. A good enough wife proves herself to not be left, to not feel like she has to leave, to make the relationship better, right, or something else, right?

Your brain could be telling you something along those lines and you might just think that this is objectively true, because your brain keeps telling you this and it keeps showing you all of this evidence that you just weren't good enough. Well, remember that one time where you didn't have dinner waiting on the table and then he got mad, and so then he went downstairs in a huff and didn't talk to you for three days. That means you did it wrong. This is what our brain does. We have an idea about something and we just take it as truth and then our brain is like and it's definitely true, because look at all of these examples that we have to support this truth, that we believe that's what our brain does, but it's not true. It's not true. That's what our brain does, but it's not true. It's not true.

Things happen and our brain is constantly unconsciously even sometimes consciously, most of the time unconsciously making interpretations and then spitting those interpretations out into our head and we take those interpretations as just logical facts. We just think well, I'm going through a divorce and so, logically, that must mean that I wasn't good enough in some way, that must mean that I'm to blame, that I've done something wrong in some way. But many of the logical and I'm going to put that in quotes right here many of the logical conclusions that our brain offers us are just things that your brain made up. It's the meaning that it has given to the circumstances that it's interpreting. Our brain is constantly looking for patterns to attach a story to, to help it make more sense. Our brain doesn't like things that don't make sense. Our brain is like uh, hold on, this is confusing. I don't understand what's happening here. It doesn't like that. It doesn't like to stay in confusion. So what? We'll just make up, a lot of times, a story that supports what we already think.

Our brain doesn't interpret things as helpful or not helpful, as good or bad. That's not what our brain does. Our brain doesn't act in or think in those type of ways. It just offers up the meaning. And when you have a body that is constantly dysregulated and unaware of what's happening inside of it, that your nervous system is constantly out of sync with itself, and when you're constantly unable to open up to or allow in or release emotions in the way that is healthy and good, and then we mix the brain in with that. That's just spitting out these interpretations and meanings and none. We mix the brain in with that. That's just spitting out these interpretations and meanings and none of it's been managed because we're not paying attention. We're just taking whatever our brain feeds us and believing that it's true and believing that it's fact.

Then we get a lot of stories and a lot of meanings and a lot of narratives that are stressful, that are ineffective in moving us forward and that are emotionally upsetting, which is happening to you as you go through your divorce, especially and when we are stuck in this space where our meaning and our narratives and our stories are stressful and they are ineffective at moving us forward toward a life that we actually want. They are ineffective at moving us forward toward a life that we actually want and we feel emotionally distraught on this emotional roller coaster going up and down on a constant basis. Our primitive brain, that amygdala, that survival part of our brain, it is very much in survival mode and this means that our prefrontal cortex, that's the part of our brain where we reason and where we make decisions and where we problem solve and where we intentionally decide things that part of our brain goes offline. And by what I mean by goes offline means it dims a little bit. It's not as effective in helping us show up for ourselves, in helping us manage and decide what is actually true, what is actually factual, where the subjective parts of our thinking is, it kind of diminishes. It doesn't work as well because it's not getting as much blood. It's not getting as much blood, it's not getting as much as much oxygen. We can't pay attention to it as well because our brain and our body are out of alignment, they are dysregulated.

And so when we get to this place where we are stressed out, where we are emotionally distraught and we are ineffective at supporting ourselves through all of this, what happens is we need to learn how to work from our body up to our brain. Basically meaning, we need to get our body into alignment first, to get our brain thinking correctly so that we can start to manage our thoughts in a way that is useful for us. Studies have shown that when we're in a state of calm and our body is in alignment with our nervous system like we've regulated it some we are able to tap into our brain function, our cognition and our functional IQ. Right, the part of our brain that, like, is really good at making decisions that support us. But as we feel more threatened, as our amygdala shows up and is like survival, danger, danger, danger, danger constantly, and we're feeling more threatened, that functional IQ, that part of us, that prefrontal cortex that's like let's make good decisions, is like meh. I'm actually not feeling it right now because I don't really know what to do or what to say or what to think, because I'm feeling really scared and feeling like I might not make it through this. That's what's happening.

So I'm not going to talk about how to regulate this the body in this episode, because I have a myriad of podcast episodes where you can go and you can learn tools to regulate yourself, to ground yourself, to do a somatic practice. Somatic just means body, a body practice to bring yourself to the here and now, to re-regulate your nervous system, which is very, very important to get that brain back online, working at the functional capacity that we want it to be working at when we're going through a divorce. So I am going to encourage you to go listen to some of those episodes. Regulate yourself to the best of your ability Doesn't mean you have to go like all the way to completely calm and perfect, right, we're not looking for that. We're just looking for feeling a little bit better in our body, a little more aligned, a little less stressed out in our body. That's what we're looking for. So I'm going to encourage you to go listen to some of those episodes and have some of those tools on hand so that you can do that.

But what I am going to focus on is the after part, the part where, once you've regulated yourself a bit and you've brought your nervous system back into some realignment for the moment. Then what Then? What do we do with our brain and all of these thoughts that are like subjective or not, factual or whatever? Right, then, what do we do? That's what I want to focus on is the what's next part about our thoughts, because once your prefrontal cortex comes back online, is working to its more functional capacity, you can begin to recognize more easily where the subjective thoughts are versus the objective facts. Okay, once you see it. Once you see it, then you can begin to consciously choose the meaning that you want to give something, instead of just taking the first thing that your brain offers you. So this is what I'm going to suggest you start doing.

This is a practice that I teach my clients to do. This is something that I do myself when I'm really struggling with, like, what is going on here. I do, I'm so confused and I do not know what's happening and I'm feeling so off. It's. This is a really simple practice. You just have to be willing to do it, and the more you do it, the easier it gets.

So, basically, you're going to be learning the difference between thoughts and objective facts, and how you do that is you set a timer for three to five minutes, and then you're going to write about something that is on your mind, something that you're struggling with. It can be something that you've been thinking about a lot, it can be something that happened to you that you just want to get out on paper, or just literally anything else. Just write your thoughts down on paper for three to five minutes. Do not judge them. That's like the number one rule when we write out our thoughts we don't judge them. There's no judgy judgerson going on when it comes to our thoughts. Okay, we just write them all down and we get them out on paper and we don't go back and we don't edit and go oh, I should have put a period right there. No, it's fine, we're not in school, it's fine. Just get your thoughts out on paper, okay.

And then, once the timer goes off, this is where we're going to go back and we're sort of going to edit, but not in the way that you're thinking, with, like the red pen and like oh, I didn't put my noun in the right place of the whatever and the. It's not like that. Okay, we're editing in this way and it's a special way to help you recognize where the thoughts are and where the facts are. So what you're going to do is you're going to go back and you're going to circle anything that you wrote down that is an objective fact. I'll give you an example of this in a minute so you kind of know what I'm saying by objective facts, because you still might be a little confused. It's okay, I, when I do this with my clients and we do it, we do it like real time together on the phone.

It can be it can be difficult to see where the actual objective facts are and then what the meaning making thoughts, subjective thoughts, are Okay, but the more you do this, the easier it gets to see the difference. So I want you to go back, I want you to circle anything that is an objective fact, and then I want you to pay attention to where you've added, your brain has added your own subjective interpretation or meaning to the story, and then you're going to underline all of those parts. So let me just give you a quick example of what this could look like. So, let's say, your ex called and he's like I want the kids to come over for dinner next Saturday night. I know it's your weekend, but my mom is going to be into town and she really wants to see the kids and she's not going to be here on the weekend, when it's mine. I'd really like them to come over for like from like six to ten for dinner, and I really don't want you to make a big deal of this, because you always do that and you always make it a big deal. So I'm just asking you to please like this, one time, let me have the kids, because it seems like every time I ask you for stuff, you always just make a big deal about it. And that's what he said. Okay, so that was the text.

And then your brain is like, oh my God, context. And then your brain is like, oh my God, I freaking hate it when he asks to see the kids during my time. He always does this. Why does he always do this? I never ask to see the kids during his time, I know, and I always say yes, and it's so frustrating. And of course I want him to let his mom be able to see the kids. Of course I want my ex-mother-in-law to be able to see the kids. They're her grandkids and she loves them and I totally understand. But it is so frustrating that he always asks me to have the kids when it is my time and then I never get to make up for it with extra time during his time because he never offers it, and then I don't want to ask him because it will just make a big deal out of it. He'll just make a big deal of it and yada, yada, yada, whatever your brain is telling you. So that whole thing that I just said, including the text word for word, right, and then all your thoughts about the text, you're going to write it all down during that three to five minutes that you've got set your timer for. You're just going to write it all down on paper. Okay, set your timer for You're just going to write it all down on paper, okay.

And then you're going to go back and circle the true, objective facts, which would be anything that he wrote in his text, because quotes like somebody's quote, I said something and I quote like that's an objective fact. He said in his text all of these words, right Okay, so that would be an objective fact just because he said it. Not all of the things, right Okay, so that would be an objective fact just because he said it. Not all of the things that he said are objective facts. Just that he said those things. But if we want to get really really, really, really, really objective here about just the facts, we could go through his text and only circle the things like the time, the date mom is going to be in town. So like Saturday night mom is going to be in town. So like Saturday night mom is going to be in town from have the kids from six to 10, or I can't remember if I said six to 10. I don't remember specifically what I said, but like whatever dates, times, mom is in town. Those would be the objective facts of the situation, okay.

And then I want you to see that literally, literally everything else that is in that paragraph of your thoughts that you said is all subjective meaning. All of it is subjective, it's all emotional reaction, it's all thoughts that your brain just fed you. None of it's objective, okay. None of it is true facts, and so you can continue to think those things and get upset and get stressed out and all of the things, or you might decide that you want to think differently about this. I'm not telling you to go into toxic positivity. That is 100% not what I'm saying and it also doesn't mean that you have to change the way you think about any of this.

All we're doing here with our thoughts is understanding and seeing the difference between what are facts and what our brain is telling us are facts, when they're actually just subjective. Completely different way of thinking about it and reacting to it, a completely different set of thoughts, where they didn't get stressed out and they didn't really care and they were just like yeah, sure, sounds great, not a big deal. I love it. When the kids get to see their grandma, it's totally fine, right? So again, we're not doing this to beat ourselves up. We're not doing this to see that we did it wrong or we're thinking wrong. No, no, no, we're not doing that. That is not what this exercise is for.

This exercise is just to help you see that the thoughts that you have in your brain typically are not actual facts and that you have the opportunity, anytime you want, to choose to think about it in a different way. It's totally up to you and it's totally within your power. All right, my friends, I love you so much. You are amazing. Do this practice, even if you just do it one time, just to kind of give you an idea. Do it and see what you notice. And if you want to set up a three of one of those free 30 minutes calls with me and you want to do this exact thing on the call with me, do it. I guarantee you will go away from that call being like, oh my gosh, I do actually have way more power in my life over what I think and believe and that, my friend, is one of the most powerful things that you can do for yourself. All right, I love you. Thank you for being here. I will be back next week. Hi, friend, I'm so glad you're here and thanks for listening.

I wanted to let you know that if you're wanting more, a way to make deeper, more lasting change, then working one-on-one with me as your coach may be exactly what you need. Together, we'll take everything you're learning in the podcast and implement it in your life, with weekly coaching, real-life practice and practical guidance. To learn more about how to work with me one-on-one, go to KarinNelsonCoaching dot com. That's W-W-W dot K-A-R-I-N. N-e-l-s-o-n coaching dot com. Thanks for listening. If this podcast agreed with you in any way, please take a minute to follow and give me a rating wherever you listen to podcasts and for more details about how I can help you live an even better life than when you were married. Make sure and check out the full show notes by clicking the link in the description.