EP99 You’re Allowed to Outgrow the Version of You Who Just Needed to Survive

Hola, 

This one’s personal. It’s tender, it’s raw, and it’s a turning point.

In this episode, I’m talking about something I know so many of us struggle with after divorce, heartbreak, or any kind of life upheaval….

Outgrowing the version of you who helped you survive.

That version of you? She was fierce AF. She got you through. 

But she’s not the final chapter.

And if you’ve been feeling a little restless lately… craving more joy, more depth, more pleasure, more purpose… this episode is your permission slip to evolve.

Inside, I talk about….

• Why your “survivor identity” can quietly (unintentionally) become your next cage
  
  
• How healing is a phase… not your forever
  
  
• The guilt of wanting more than just being okay (and why it doesn’t make you shallow)
  
  
• What happens when we fear outgrowing our own story… and our people
  
  
• The quiet craving for reinvention that’s been knocking for a while now
  
  This episode marks the start of something shifting…. for me, for this podcast, and maybe for you too.

Next Friday’s episode is number 100… and I’ll be sharing how this podcast is changing… because I’ve changed, and maybe you have too. If you’ve ever felt the whisper of “there’s more for me”… you’re going to want to be there.

🎧 Listen now if you’re ready to stop surviving and start becoming.

Sarah x

🩷 

Transcript

00:00

Hola and welcome back to the divorce chapter podcast with me. Your host, Sarah Elizabeth, I am still one handed sadly, but I'm starting to try and adapt as best I can. Like, not gonna lie, it's fucking exhausting. Doing everything with just my left hand takes about five times as long. And quite honestly, I need to freaking nap after it's bloody hard work. But you know, I need to adapt. I had the consultant this week, and although the X rays 16 days on showed that it is starting to heal. Well, it, isn't the six week job that I'd kind of hoped it was going to be. More like three to four fucking months. But hey ho, you know, we gotta get on with it, right? You know? And I think that for all of us that when we've been through divorce, you know, life itself is a complex web of twists and turns, and sometimes we do have to work out new ways to do shit, don't we, so you know, here we are backing your beautiful, badass earbuds, and this one matters this week, not that they all don't, but this one matters because this is the one that quietly changes everything.

01:50

This is episode 99 which means next week we hit 100, and if you've been around for a while, you already know that episode 100 marks something new, something bigger, bolder and way more you. But before we get there, we need to talk. We need to talk about the identity that gets us through the fire, and how it can, quite unintentionally, become a new prison if we're not careful. So we need to talk about that survival mode that we've clung to with bloodied fingernails, the part of you that held it together when it was falling the fuck apart, the version of you who survived divorce, betrayal, loss, rejection, abandonment, humiliation even, and still got up and made the fucking packed lunches. She was a badass, but she was never supposed to be the final destination. So today's your permission slip to outgrow the version of you who just needed to survive.

03:28

So let's fucking go. And I want to start with a bit of a visual. Right? Imagine you're shipwrecked. You've built a raft out of trauma, tears, sheer freaking determination, you cling to it and it saves you. It keeps you afloat when the sea is rough as fuck, merciless and the land is nowhere to be fucking seen. But eventually, the weather changes. The storm calms down. The sun might even pop out at times. You see land just ahead in the distance. And what happens? You stay on the fucking raft, not because you have to anymore, no, but because you're terrified of what it means to let it go, and that raft is your survival identity. And so many of us, so many of us, live on it long after the dangers passed, we become the strong one, the survivor, the one who coped so well in the shitstorm. And and we wear that identity like a badge, a big, sparkly, freaking badge. Sometimes it even becomes a brand. But here's the thing, nobody tells you you can't live your best goddamn life from a lifeboat. At some point you've got to decide to swim, to wade to shore build something new and more sustainable. And that's terrifying, absolutely fucking terrifying. Because who even are you if you're not the woman who just survived?

05:51

So let's talk about that secret longing for more. Yeah, I see you. You're ashamed to admit it, but you want more, so let's talk about more, not more pain, not more coping mechanisms, not more perfectionism, not more journaling through fucking tears, but more life, more joy, more happiness, more sex, more money, more fun, more laughter, more meaning, more Yes, more Fuck yes, and then the guilt that freaks him with it, because if you've been through hell, there's often this weird kind of shame, in wanting more than just Air quotes healing. You're somehow worried that people would think you're shallow, selfish, or worse, delusional. Deluloo, she lives on the Isle of delulo Doesn't she? Crikey, you know, like, Who are you to want radiance when you're still patching yourself back together. But the truth is, honestly, what I've learned is that wanting more doesn't make you ungrateful. It makes you alive. You were not put on this planet to become the best version of your brokenness. You were made to take that pain, alchemize it, and fucking use it as rocket fuel. You're not just some wounded woman who made it out. You're fucking Phoenix who's just getting started, and if you're sitting there craving the next chapter, but feeling guilty for wanting it, let me tell you this. You're allowed. You're goddamn allowed. You are allowed to even if that means outgrowing your story of survival. But that's scary, right? It's a big one. That's the big one the fear that if you evolve, you grow, you heal, you get better.

08:46

But if you stop centering your identity around your divorce, the ex, your heartbreak, your trauma, what if? What if people don't get you anymore? What if you lose friends? What if you confuse people for me, doing this podcast, pivoting this podcast, might mean disappointing someone who needed the me, the version of me who cried on the bathroom floor. Maybe you're scared that by letting go of your survival identity, you're somehow invalidating everything you went through. But you know what? The flip side is, that if you don't evolve, if you don't allow yourself to become someone new, then you are choosing. You to live in a story that has already ended. Does that make sense? You don't owe anyone anything except yourself. You owe yourself freedom, and that is what reinvention is, not betrayal, not forgetting, not don't even get me started on the forgiving words, not denial, even reinvention is like this, radical acts of letting yourself become someone your past self wouldn't even fucking recognise, and and being damn proud of that, you can outgrow a cage that once kept you safe. You can want peace after fucking chaos. You can want to create, flirt, speak, earn, dance, scream, love with abandon, whatever it looks like for you, you can want to be powerful now, not just resilient.

11:28

This is concept that I've been reading about called anti fragility. So like, if fragile means breaking easily, like letting something break you, like a pane of glass. You drop it, it just shatters into a million bases. That's fragile, but then we've got resilient, and that's kind of described as like a rubber ball. You drop it, it bounces, doesn't break, but it just stays as it is. But then we have anti fragility. And the anti fragility concept talks about how like muscles, right? We go to the gym and we're actually tearing our muscles, breaking them, in order to grow them and make them stronger. And I love that anti fragility concept for divorce. We don't just want to be resilient bounce back. We want to fucking grow stronger, bigger, bolder from it, right? So you can want more. You can want to be powerful now. You can want to be visible now, not just healing, quietly shoved in the corner, getting on with it, just getting on with it, living a vanilla beige life. Or you can want more. You can want to be badass as fuck. You can want bold lipstick, big energy, a life that doesn't just whisper, it fucking roars. Survival was just the raft, it was just the bridge. It wasn't the fucking destination. You don't have to stay there.

13:46

And that kind of brings me on to next week, episode 100, the new era. Because guess what, if you haven't worked out, I've changed, and maybe you have too maybe you feeling as well, like you're outgrowing the old story. And if so, this next chapter is for you. We're still talking real. We're still talking raw, we're still telling the truth about life after divorce, but we're also talking identity, legacy, reinvention, power, purpose, because this podcast is no longer about the breakdown, it's about the breakthrough, and beyond that, it's about becoming a woman who fucking builds. Yeah. So if you're ready to stop apologising for the more that you're becoming that you want to become, if you're ready to throw the old labels in the fucking fire, then I'll see you next week, episode 100, the rebrand, the rebirth, the revolution, the reinvention. It's freaking time, and just like with this podcast, you too are allowed to outgrow the version of you who just needed to survive a may she be so proud of who you're becoming. She really freaking would. So thank you for being here. Thank you for riding this with me. We're not going anywhere. We're just getting bigger, bolder and more fucking badass as fuck. So here's to the reinvention. Here's to your reinvention, and I can't wait to be back in your beautiful earbuds for so much more. I am sending you so much love. Bye.