How to Prepare for Dating After Divorce: Starting Again and Finding Love

• So You're Divorced, So What?

• The Art of Self-Care

• Taking time to yourself to tend to your wounds.

• Self-Discovery and permission to create a new version of yourself.

• Shifting your focus and expanding your vision for what is possible

• Defining what you want in a future partner.

• Self-sabotaging your success because of an upper-limit problem.

• How your beliefs are holding you back from being successful in the dating world.

• Steps to keep your working relationship with your ex focused on what is best for the kids

• How to move from searching for love to being In Love.

• Ways to have fun with the process and make it feel lighter.

If you would like to speak with one of our attorneys, please call our office at (503) 227-0200, or visit our website at https://www.pacificcascadelegal.com.

To learn more about how Shaunna can help you, you can visit her website: https://www.shaunnalee.com/

Disclaimer: Nothing in this communication is intended to provide legal advice nor does it constitute a client-attorney relationship, therefore you should not interpret the contents as such.

Steve Altishin 18:01
Oh my gosh, I agree. You also talk about the tools you use to succeed. And and again it's fascinating, the intentionality of the approach. It's like, okay, here's what I want, this is what I'm gonna do. So I'm gonna go. And now I'm going to use some actual nuts and bolts tools to do it. And I know journaling is one and meditation is one that you talk about, could you kind of go through a little bit of how those tools work?

Shaunna Lee 18:31
Absolutely. So journaling changed my life, hands down. I think that it is one of the most powerful tools available to us. And the reason for that is because so many of us are walking around with all of these thoughts in our head, and we don’t ever take the time to sit down and process them. And when you put pen to paper, there’s something really magical that happens. You start uncovering patterns, you start recognizing fears, you start noticing your desires. And a lot of times people are shocked by what comes out of them once they actually allow themselves the space to write honestly.

Shaunna Lee 19:12
So one of the exercises I encourage people to do is what I call a “future self” journaling exercise. I want you to imagine yourself one year from now, two years from now, five years from now, and ask yourself: What does she look like? How does she feel? What kind of relationships does she have? What kind of work is she doing? How does she spend her mornings? And the more detailed you can get, the more your brain starts moving toward creating that version of yourself. And it sounds woo woo, but there’s a lot of science behind it too. Your brain starts looking for opportunities that align with the vision you’re creating.

Steve Altishin 19:52
That’s fascinating because it sounds a little bit like goal setting, but also emotional processing all at the same time.

Shaunna Lee 20:01
Exactly. It’s both. Because healing is emotional work, but rebuilding your life is intentional work. And journaling helps bridge those two things together. Meditation was another huge thing for me. And I know people hear meditation and immediately think they have to sit on a mountaintop somewhere and completely clear their mind, and that’s not what I’m talking about. Meditation for me was learning how to sit still long enough to hear myself again.

Shaunna Lee 20:31
When you go through divorce, there’s so much noise. There’s attorneys, there’s family members, there’s friends, there’s social media, there’s fear, there’s anger, there’s sadness. And somewhere in all of that noise, your own inner voice gets drowned out. Meditation helped me reconnect with myself and helped me learn to trust myself again. Because a lot of people come out of divorce not trusting their own decisions anymore. They’re questioning everything.

Steve Altishin 20:59
That makes total sense. I imagine confidence probably takes a hit for a lot of people after divorce.

Shaunna Lee 21:07
Huge. Absolutely huge. And confidence isn’t something that magically comes back one day. It’s rebuilt through small promises you keep to yourself. It’s rebuilt by showing up for yourself over and over again. And that’s why self-care is so important. And I don’t mean just bubble baths and spa days. I mean true self-care. Sleeping enough. Drinking enough water. Moving your body. Saying no when you need to say no. Setting boundaries. Going to therapy if you need therapy. Self-care is really about rebuilding your relationship with yourself.

Steve Altishin 21:46
I like that. Rebuilding your relationship with yourself. That’s really powerful.

Shaunna Lee 21:52
It is powerful because so many people lose themselves inside relationships. Especially women. We become wives and moms and caretakers and we forget who we are outside of those roles. And divorce, while painful, can become this incredible opportunity to rediscover yourself again. To ask, who am I now? What lights me up? What excites me? What do I actually enjoy?

Steve Altishin 22:18
And I imagine that helps people stop self-sabotaging too, because you talk about upper-limit problems and beliefs that hold people back.

Shaunna Lee 22:30
Oh my gosh, yes. We all have an upper limit. We all have this invisible ceiling of what we think we deserve. And the second we start approaching more happiness, more success, more love than we think we’re worthy of, we unconsciously sabotage it. We pick fights. We pull away. We settle. We convince ourselves it won’t work out anyway. And until you become aware of those patterns, you’ll repeat them over and over again.

Shaunna Lee 23:01
That’s why mindset work is so important. Because if you still believe deep down that you’re unworthy, or broken, or “too damaged” after divorce, you’re going to carry that energy into every relationship and every interaction. And people feel that energy. But when you truly believe you are worthy of love and happiness and success, you show up completely differently.

Steve Altishin 23:28
That really sounds like the transition from searching for love to actually being in love with your life first.

Shaunna Lee 23:37
Exactly. That’s the whole point. I think so many people are desperately searching for someone else to complete them or save them or fix the pain. But the real magic happens when you create a life you genuinely love first. Then you’re no longer dating from a place of lack or desperation. You’re dating from a place of fullness. And that changes everything.

Steve Altishin 24:03
And maybe makes it a little more fun too.

Shaunna Lee 24:07
It absolutely makes it more fun. One of the biggest things I teach people is to lighten up a little bit. Dating doesn’t have to feel like a job interview or a life-or-death situation. Go meet people. Have conversations. Laugh. Learn about yourself in the process. Every date doesn’t have to become your soulmate story. Sometimes it’s just practice. Sometimes it’s just proof that there are good people in the world again.

Steve Altishin 24:35
I really love that perspective. Because I think after divorce people can become very afraid of getting hurt again.

Shaunna Lee 24:44
Absolutely. But the goal isn’t to avoid all pain forever. The goal is to become strong enough and self-aware enough that you trust yourself to handle whatever comes. That’s real confidence. That’s real healing.

Steve Altishin 25:00
Well, this has been fantastic. Thank you so much for sitting down and talking with us about healing after divorce, rediscovering yourself, dating, co-parenting, and all the ways people can move forward and create something beautiful again after a really difficult experience.

Shaunna Lee 25:17
Thank you so much for having me. I absolutely loved this conversation.

Steve Altishin 25:22
And thank you everyone for joining us today. If anyone has further questions, feel free to contact our firm, and we can help connect you with resources that may help. Until next time, stay safe, stay happy, and be well.

Outro:
This has been Modern Family Matters, a legal podcast focusing on providing real answers and direction for individuals and families. Our podcast is sponsored by Pacific Cascade Legal, serving families in Oregon and Washington. If you are in need of legal counsel or have additional questions about a family law matter important to you, please visit our websites at pacificcascadelegal.com or pacificcascadefamilylaw.com. You can also call our headquarters at (503) 227-0200 to schedule a case evaluation with one of our seasoned attorneys. Modern Family Matters, advocating for your better tomorrow and offering legal solutions important to the modern family.

Shaunna Lee 18:36
I mean, twist my arm to talk about meditation and journaling one more time. I would say those are the two things that have truly changed my life. If I were to give it kind of a quick summary, meditate, both of them allow you to be intentional. And I would say that probably is the theme and everything that I'm teaching everything that I'm sharing, it all comes back to intentional, be intentional with where you're going what you want. But meditation lets you practice that. Journaling lets you work through a lot of things and practice. So those tools, I think are a good way to work through difficult emotions, uncover limiting beliefs, be able to practice what you want to feel like in any given situation. So specifically meditating, and spending time thinking through how you want this next interaction to go. How do you want the first date with this person to go? How do you want your next conversation with your ex to go, being able to sit in meditation and kind of practice what that looks like and what it feels like in the way that you want it to go? Is setting attentions and then journaling one of my favorite so two big things about journaling might my first is practicing gratitude. And the second is practicing kind of future situations. So that example I just gave with meditation you can do with journaling as well and you can kind of write ate through. I'm so grateful for this experience and talk about this scenario that you want to have happen. As if it's already happened as if it is your current day present reality, I've met this man, he is so amazing, he makes me feel this I'm so in love, like being able to write through how it will feel to have this person in your life. And the same goes for conversations with your ex, like, difficult conversation, like how many of us have lost sleep over a potential conversation like, I find it's more helpful to think through how you want it to go and practice that. And so journaling lets you do that. But then my other thing about journaling that I love to tell everybody about is this kind of framework for gratitude journaling. And this is where this little tiny framework can give you the ability to start small and create a daily habit. So I think that on the days that I have meditated, and I've journaled things go smoother, I show up as my better self. So I know how beneficial it is to me. And gratitude journaling was a really good practical way for me to put it into practice. And so it's it's three steps, it's, the first one is three to five things that you are grateful for. The next is something that you are proud of. And the next is something you're looking forward to. And so it's all about future gratitude. But we are not conditioned to be grateful in this society, we're conditioned to look for problems and solve problems and what is missing and what is wrong. And so gratitude takes practice. And so that's where I think journaling is a really good way to help us kind of practice this gratitude mindset that has to be cultivated, and built over time.

Steve Altishin 21:46
I love that. I love that. And one of the things I think it also does, because you're writing stuff down, and when you write stuff down, you think of Woodstock, and stuff that you maybe haven't thought of for years. It really good for like getting your brain to start, you know, flashing again on the old synopses that haven't been used forever.

Shaunna Lee 22:15
Yeah. Oh, for sure. I think one of the concepts, or one of the tactics for journaling that I've heard is this whole stream of consciousness, where you can kind of ask God angels universe, you know, a question and then just start writing. And this stream of consciousness is really kind of you tapping into the divine and, and getting the answers that you're looking for. But if you just free flow, write it out. It is amazing what comes up from that. It can be stuff from the past, it can be aha moments for how you can change your perspective. It's, it's really amazing what putting pen to paper can do.

Steve Altishin 22:51
I love it. I could not agree more. So now, I love another thing you talked about where you moved on from divorce and on to dating. And now it's time to move along from searching for love to being in love. What does that mean?

Shaunna Lee 23:11
Yes, well, so one of the things I talk about in so in this dating course, I have I, and I'm writing a book about dating that is on the horizon. But one of the things I talk about is your daily practice. So I give homework each week in this course. And one of the things is to go be in love, go be in love for the week, you haven't met the person yet. But I want you to walk around as if you are in love with this person. And what happens is kind of miraculous, because all of a sudden, you're in love with the way your children are interacting, you're in love with this thing you saw on TV, you're like you're just you fall in love with your life. And I think that state of being is what then attracts love to you. And so it's a very intentional practice that I'm recommending. But then fast forward, you meet the person, you do fall in love. And then reality sets in. And so I have a whole chapter on self sabotage. Because there's this concept of happiness thresholds and upper limits, where we're all comfortable with being like this happy. But if I get to this happy, then I'm gonna self sabotage and bring myself back down to this comfort zone. And I was trying to remember the name of the book and the author, I think it's called the upper limit. No, it's called The Big Leap. And I don't remember the author's name, but go find it. It's got a fish on the cover is an amazing book all about this concept of us self sabotaging to keep us in this comfort zone. And really, the miraculous thing we can do for ourselves is when we bust out of that upper limit and get comfortable there and really expand what our comfort zone is for happiness thresholds because is all of this to tie back to dating, when you're in that first relationship after, after you've been divorced, after you've done the healing, you've done all the things and you've met the person. That's when all patterns start to pop up. And that's when self sabotage starts, can I really be this happy? Can he really be this great. And so you kind of it's a little bit of an uncomfortable scenario that you kind of have to push through, so that you can allow yourself to get to that really great place that you've been wanting to be.

Steve Altishin 25:28
I love it. You quoted an author, I hear you, and all I could think of, what comes to my brain, of course, is that Rolling Stones song. You can't always get what you want. But you find sometimes you get what you need. Yeah, I love that. We're getting close to the end. So before we do, I wanted to do a couple things. First, I want to have you let people know how they can get a hold of you if they would like do it. I'm sure some people are definitely going to want to do that. And so just what is the ways that they can get a hold of you?

Shaunna Lee 26:09
So I am simply Shaunna Lee on all of the socials. I love to play on Instagram the most, Shaunna is spelled S H A U N N A, because my parents wanted to be different. My website is where they can go find out all sorts of information about my courses, my books, I've got a lot of free downloads over there, and that's shaunnalee.com.

Steve Altishin 26:29
I love it. We have a couple minutes, so I'm going to ask you one more question I'm going to say, if you have a couple of minutes, then what would one piece of advice you would give to someone who's calling you and saying, it's not going right, I don't know what to do?

Shaunna Lee 26:50
What would be my first advice? I would say first of all, it's going to be okay. Just take a breath, and I think one of the best things we can do for ourselves is to stop really telling the story of what's gone wrong, to stop spinning our focus and our energy on how it didn't go right or what is missing. I think the minute we can stop that momentum because I think energy is this momentum it builds like a snowball running down a mountain, right? So stop the the train in its tracks. And then say okay, what do I want? And if you spend more time and energy focused on what you want, rather than what is wrong, or what is missing, or what you don't want. That's when things start shifting.

Steve Altishin 27:40
I love it. I love it. You gave a physics answer. Makes me feel so good. Time and energy are work, and momentum is energy. So I'd love to thank you so much for being here today, Shaunna. This was really cool sitting down and talking about dating, getting back into dating and and kind of reintroducing yourself, after divorce, to love again. I just thought it was great. So thank you so much.

Shaunna Lee 28:13
Thank you so much for having me. It was a super fun conversation.

Steve Altishin 28:17
Oh, it was, thank you, you made it super fun. So everyone else thank you as well for joining us today. If anyone has further questions on today's topic, you can definitely post it here and we can get you connected with Shaunna. And until next time again, stay safe, stay happy and be well.

Outro:
This has been Modern Family Matters a legal podcast focusing on providing real answers and direction for individuals and families. Our podcast is sponsored by Landerholm family law and Pacific cascade family law serving families in Oregon and Washington. If you are in need of legal counsel or have additional questions about a family law matter important to you, please visit our websites at Landerholm law.com or Pacific cascade family law.com. You can also call our headquarters at 503270 200 to schedule a case evaluation with one of our seasoned attorneys. Modern Family Matters, advocating for your better tomorrow and offering legal solutions important to the Modern Family