From Broken to Burning the Script: Mindset Shifts that Saved Me

Fifteen years. I’d spent more than a decade building the life I believed I should want, only for it to be leveled in five seconds flat. I couldn’t believe it, couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that the man I’d dedicated my life to, was the one standing there holding the matches.

Where there’s smoke, there’s fire, and let’s be honest: there had been smoke for awhile. I’d learned how to ignore it, how to breathe in it, how to pretend that it wasn’t there, suffocating my desires. But when it became too thick to ignore, too heavy to breathe, I realized I had two options.

I could stand there, crying over all of the “should have been’s” that were turned to ash, or I could grab the gasoline and burn away every version of myself that had allowed it to get that bad in the first place.

I chose the gasoline.

If my life was going to burn to the ground, I was going to make darn sure it took everything that tied me to my old identity with it.

The most radical move a single mom can make isn’t to survive the fire or move on through the embers. It’s to refuse to be a victim in her life and blaze a trail to the life she actually wants. Here are the 5 mindset shifts I made to go from broken to burning it all down.

My Final Bow on the Good Girl Performance

I had been trained to hang in there, to keep up the good fight, to push through at any and all costs.

After all, good Christian women do not give up on their marriages.

So that’s what I did.

For over a decade, I continued to add layer upon layer to the performance of a lifetime. I smiled and I nodded and I had more babies because he wanted more babies and I served at church because he liked the attention, and I thought that I was doing everything right.

It didn’t matter that we kept running into speed bumps that felt like brick walls.

It didn’t matter that our marriage was a one sided display of forgiving and trying to forget.

It didn’t matter that my feelings, my needs, my personhood never seemed to be considered.

Everyone knows that’s not enough reason to reclaim your life. No, better to wait until it’s absolutely, soul-crushingly obliterated before you take back control.

Is it any wonder that when that day arrived, I felt relief as much as I felt grief?

5 Mindset Shifts as a Single Mom That I Made After Divorce That Changed Everything

My mindset didn’t change overnight. It was a lot of cycling through bad decisions and depressive episodes to find my way to the other side of shattered. After I decided to stop being a victim of my circumstances, I made 5 mindset shifts as a single mom, and I haven’t looked back.

Realize that no one is going to do it for you.

If you want to move through the tunnel of pain, if you want to stop hurting and start healing, if you want to let go of the past and step into your future: you are the one, sister. No prince charming is going to throw you up on his white steed and whisk you away to happily-ever-after-land.

You’ve got to be your own transportation.

Rebel Moves: Research and implement ways to regulate your nervous system, eat anti-inflammatory meals that provide real nutrition, workout like your mental health depends on it, because it does.

Trade overwhelm for empowerment.

You are the decision maker, the one in charge, the new leader of your family. You can let that thought trigger moments of hyperventilating into a paper bag, or you could use it to pump you up.

See, the thing is, the last time you built a life, you were doing it for the greater good. You were following the path of trad-wives before you, and buying in to all of the things that you were supposed to want, be, and do.

Welp. That didn’t work out so great. So burn the script and write a new one.

Rebel Move: Decide that not fitting in is a point worth proving and start making decisions based on your own standards.

Embody main character energy.

I’m going to be honest with you, sob stories are the oldest tales of all time. Everybody has one. You’re not special just because you’ve been through a particular sort of hell.

Think about the last movie you watched that really shook you: was the main character whining to everyone around her about how terribly she’d been treated or how difficult her life was? Or did she do something about it?

Be the main character of your life.

Rebel Move: Read my Radical Self-Discovery Journey and get clear on your own life’s terms.

Being whole trumps being perfect.

Look, you’re not going to do this perfectly. Some days, you’re not even going to do it well. You’ve never been this version of yourself before, how could you expect to get it right on the first try?

You can be imperfect, you can be a hot mess, you can be feral and unapologetically unbothered. What you’re not going to be is a spiral of guilt, shame, and/or victimhood about what’s taking place. Do what you need to do to be exactly you, and to show up for your kids, without apology.

Rebel Move: Spend money on the gym membership so you can workout, leave the dishes in the sink so you can soak up that mood boosting sunshine, turn on the tv every afternoon so you can take one full hour of silence for yourself.

Celebrate not fitting in.

I wasted massive amounts of energy and most of my sanity trying to keep our life the same.

Or at least same-ish.

And it almost cost me everything.

Then I realized, I couldn’t keep pace with the families around us. We have a different vibe and a new tribe. At first, that gave me anxiety. Now? Only peace. Burn away the shoulds and you’ll find your new, amazing, normal.

Rebel Move: Make dinner early. Or late. Or just snack for dinner. Or skip dinner altogether and just go for dessert. Whatever feels the most you in that moment, with zero regard for how it’s “typically done”, is exactly the right move.

Unbothered Mindset Shifts for Single Moms are a Game Changer

Here’s the thing, you adorable little rebel you, you didn’t ask for the fire… but you can’t just stand in the flames, either. You’ve got to be an active participant in burning away all of the things that could hold you back from the life you actually want to live. You’ve got to step into your unbothered as a mother era.

Unbothered as a single mother era.

And after you commit to making these mindset shifts, grab the 5 Rebellious Journal prompts. They’ll be propel you forward with your own set of matches.

I’m ready to start a fire.