Self-Love in Divorce: You're Not Alone

Speaker

You are listening to the empowering working moms podcast, real talk with Dr. Priyanka Nya, a show to help professional moms in survival mode to take hold of their lives and thrive. If you're ready to take powerful action to create your best life, then this is the show for you. I'm your host, Dr. Priyanka Nayak, board certified internal medicine physician and certified life coach. Now let's get to it and dive in. You are listening to the empowering working moms Podcast, episode number 12. Hello, everybody. I have a very special episode today it is my first interview. And the reason I did this interview is because I really want to dive deeply into issues that are not, you know, fluffy, or talking about stress and time management all the time. But really the things that people might feel isolated and alone in and that includes divorce. And that's really the real talk part of the title of this podcast, empowering working moms real talk with Dr Priyanka Nidek. Because I want to cover the issues here that other people may not address. And I want you to know that you're not alone. Even if you feel isolated in your problems. You feel like your life is messy. You feel stuck. You're most certainly not alone. You're not alone here in this forum. peace, freedom and confidence, have fulfilled life are possible for you, even if it feels impossible right now, even if you're in a miserable career job, miserable marriage, and it feels like no way. You know, you're crazy. What are you talking about? So the purpose of today's talk, I have a guest Dr. Manisha Ahluwalia, and she's a physician and life coach, she's going to talk about her journey with divorce. This is a topic that is often stigmatized in the South Asian community. People are raised to and in many other cultures as well. People are raised to stay married no matter what. So she talks about how she navigate figuring out that she wants a divorce, moving through that process, amicably and with love, and then her post divorce light. Here we go. All right, I am so excited to have a guest my very first guests on this podcast. Dr. Manisha who Alia Is that how you say your name? I didn't as well. Yeah, I loo Alia to really talk about because on this podcast. The name includes real talk with Dr. Priyanka Nayak. And I think part of the Real Talk is discussing the things that we don't want to talk about at dinner parties or maybe with certain friends and we don't want to be open about things that maybe we're ashamed of, or we feel alone, we feel scared and one of those topics is divorce, even though we know that in this country, there's a 50% divorce rate. So one out of two married couples are destined for divorce, fortunately, or unfortunately, however you see it and yet somehow when women are going through this process, we just feel people feel alone, right? They feel so isolated. So I really want I know, Dr. Manisha is super brave and she is willing to share with us her journey and all of the things and hopefully this conversation that I have with her will give you not only the feeling that you're you are you are not alone, but also hope. So Manisha, take it away, and please introduce yourself. Tell us what you do. Because Manisha is a physician and life coach as well. And at the end, we can talk about where we can reach you.

 

Speaker

Yeah, sure. Hi, Franco, thank you so much for having me. And I'm excited to be here today as well. And this topic is something that I agree we want to talk about it more so that we don't feel as isolated going through it. And my I'm an infectious disease physician. That's what I trained to do initially. And I practiced for 13 years and all types of different ways. As people do practice medicine, meaning like community hospitals and federally qualified health centers and humanitarian aid work, working abroad with Doctors Without Borders. And now mostly I work through an agency like a travel doctor so it's called locums for those of us who are not physicians, and that's what I do. I also certified as a life coach and 2020 through the Life Coach School, so I do that as well. And after divorce, I'm now a property manager. I have two properties that we acquired during divorce so that I do that too. And in my spare time I play a lot of tennis and I play competitively. It's my passion. And then I have my own personal time with friends and family and that kind of thing.

 

Speaker

So Manisha, I, you know, I was thinking about divorce. And I know, it's a very painful process, regardless of the circumstances, and yet, with coaching, or maybe if you have the coaching tools, you can still have the pain, but be living your best life. What do you think about that?

 

Speaker

I think that's a great question to discuss here today. Because I've said so many times, to myself and to others. I think the process that I went through with divorce is actually starting with just the decision making process. Like that first time you admit to yourself that this is what's next that this is the next best step for you. That separation is the next best thing that divorce is the right thing, like when you're making those decisions. And then when you're going through the separation, and then when you're going through the divorce. And then when you're in that process, after of sort of regrouping your life, I just think that all of that could have been so much worse, had I not had the tools of self coaching and also had the coaches for my own support. And, and because I had some of the tools that I could use for myself, and also rely on some of the coaching, I do think that the process of divorce did not overtake everything. Maybe outside of me, maybe I wasn't let's say participating in sports as much as I would have. Or maybe I wasn't working as much as I would have. But at the same time, like in my own head, I think I was still with myself, if that makes sense. I was still able to sort of meet myself where I was, regardless of the anger or the sadness. It was easier for me to be okay, having those emotions, rather than feeling like I'm probably doing it wrong. And I think that was the number one thing that I was aware, was much better. I was okay, being sad. I was okay being angry, I was okay being loving in the process. And I think that was because of the the tools from coaching. And also just when I was making requests of my partner, like, couldn't we do it this way and make it work? Couldn't we do this and make it work. And when he had his own ideas and his own opinions and his own needs and desires that he was verbalizing. And they were different from mine. Of course, there was a part of me that wanted to be angry and hurt, that I wasn't enough, for example, to meet all of his needs. But I think because of the tools and coaching that we've learned, like just any tools that help you develop yourself, there's that possibility that you could see somebody else's thoughts, desires, as their own and having nothing to do with you having nothing to do with the fact that you didn't do enough or that you weren't enough. Having the awareness that like that person has their own needs and desires that really are separate from what you're providing, which takes a little bit of the pressure, and the judgment off of yourself. And so I didn't feel I think that inadequacy as much as I would have had I not had the, the the tools of coaching because I in my story. We got together as sort of like people who are going to volunteer in the world, and we thought kids might be a hindrance to our work in the world. And so we decided we wouldn't have kids, but a couple of years into marriage, he decided that he wanted kids and kind of expected that I would have the same wishes and desires. And but that never really came about for me. And despite that I tried to have children and tried to get pregnant and really had a tough time. We started when I was 41. So it was a little bit older, even when I started trying. And then I tried for four years and I had all kinds of obstacles in that journey, which I can go into later if necessary. But in those obstacles, we went for years and we try it and we just never were successful. And at the end of it, I said I'm kind of done trying. And I had to come to terms with this idea that I have done everything that I can, even if he still has an unmet desire. And those two ideas can exist mutually

 

Speaker

and there's nothing more More for me to do, right to change the situation and there's nothing else I am willing to do. And I understood that that was the most important lesson for me is that am I willing to do more, even if I can do more Am I willing to do more. And when you use the tools of coaching and decide that this is what's best for you is that you're not willing, and you're not going to do more, and you're going to verbalize that. And you're going to say it out loud. And you're going to say it out loud multiple times to yourself, to your partner, to your family, to your loved ones who have lots of questions for you. That sort of power to be with yourself and your own thoughts, knowing that another person is feeling like you didn't do enough, but you can feel like you didn't do enough. I think that's, that's where it really came in handy in those crucial moments.

 

Speaker

Oh, my gosh, I love this so much. I'm getting chills just talking about that. And so if I made a note what you were talking about, originally about loving yourself through the process, and I actually wanted to ask you, when you were trying, you know, to have a family? Was that in line with who you were? Or do you feel like you were being loving towards yourself at that time.

 

Speaker

At that time, I was being loving to myself, because for me, first and foremost, my priority is the relationship, the the romantic love, it's always been a very important thing in my life. It's always been something I've sought after, but not in a way that it was hurried, I waited, you know, like I was 37 when I got married, and I waited to find somebody that I really connected with. And so to me, once I found him, I really wanted to make it work. And I thought that this was just one of the things you do in the relationship when you really I kept telling him I don't want to have a kid, but I want to preserve our relationship. And I'm willing to try. And I was very clear about it in my head. Yeah, this is not really motherhood was not something I imagined. And I don't really need it. Because I'm so content in the relationship. I don't need anything else. I'm contented my life and contentment in the relationship. In my family life. I didn't need anything more. But I was willing to do it because I wanted the relationship to work. And that was for me, right? Like if I want the relationship, because it's my first priority in life, then I feel that that was for me. Yeah, I

 

Speaker

love that can you describe then how you continue to love yourself as you because I actually I do talk about self love in a previous like one of the prior episodes to this hearing. But just kind of the role that self love had, as you move towards that decision, as you got divorced and post divorce. You're staying true to that.

 

Speaker 

What a lot of it had to do with love for me, as my, quote, body failed me. During attempts at trying to conceive a lot of that was so the, the reproductive endocrinologist, the doctors who help you get pregnant, they were telling me that I might need to lose weight so that I can fix my hormones and be a little bit healthier as I tried to get pregnant. And so there was like a first shock. At that point, when you know, you're kind of mid 30s, you're a doctor, and you're being told that you need to get healthier in order to try to get pregnant. And I took it to an extreme. And I really went all in on that process of trying to improve my physiology, improve my health so that I could better my chances of getting pregnant. And throughout that process, if anyone's ever tried to lose weight, like if you you can either love yourself to skinny, or you can hate yourself to skinny you know, and I think that was a big learning process is like how to figure out that I'm doing I'm going through the journey of getting healthier, but not as a means of punishing myself but more as a means of loving my body and loving my you know, health and optimizing my health towards this end goal of getting pregnant. So that was definitely one part where self love had a big role. Like I'm not going to do this with self loathing, I have to do it through self love. And the other part was just like every all the effort that you put into trying to get pregnant and also sustaining a marriage that strained means that you're removing yourself from other things because you just don't have the bandwidth. That's right, when right when you're not going to X, Y and z's party, when you're not going to go attend whatever wedding or you're not going to go to a baby shower. You're not going to go to anything related to weddings and receptions and babies right because all of it's a trigger. You have to keep reminding my or I had to keep reminding myself. This is what's best. For me right now, I can't be there for everybody else, while I'm also investing time and effort, excuse me, into what is most important for me. And therefore my marriage and to my husband and everything that means, you know, my top priorities I had to prioritize in a list and decide, like, my energy is going to have to go into these things, and I have to sacrifice some things, which, as physicians, you know, we get good at anyways. But so, but this was through self love, this was not through pressure to perform. So we can do good in medical school, this was, I have to put me first I have to put us first. And that's the only way to move through the process, because there's only a finite amount of energy, right. So you can't give it to everybody else, if you need a lot of it to give to you in the relationship. And that's, that's another place I think, where you have to be really honest. And set up those boundaries with others, in a loving way doesn't have to be done. Without kindness, it can definitely be done with kindness. But that was really important to another. I know another place that I did that was when I controlled the narrative with my family and what they mean, what I mean by that is, as I would tell my family when I'm going through, and I don't mean just my nuclear family, like my parents and my brother. But I mean, like my extended family, all my aunts and uncles, and anybody who's Indian on this podcast, or anybody is raised in a big family can relate, you know, when you have those chat groups, where you update your family on what's going on, and you post pictures and this and that, well, I've always been open about everything. So there was no reason for me to not be open, about separation, or actually fertility, fertility struggles, separation, divorce, I kept them abreast of everything as I was going through it. And I kind of realized that when I put stuff out there, not only on social media, but in my social, like in my family chat groups, I think people got really uncomfortable. And people started saying all kinds of weird things to me. And I was like, what, what are these remarks? What are these comments? How come nobody knows what to say? And so I just took it upon myself to say, these are the three things you might want to say. And feel free to pick from one of them. And that's what I mean by controlling the narrative. Because otherwise, I was being triggered left and right. And I also felt like, nobody's understanding what I'm trying to say when I'm explaining what I'm going through. And if they're not going to understand what to say, they're not going to understand. I mean, they're not understanding what I'm saying. They're not going to understand what to say back. So let me just also tell them what I need them to say. And it really worked well. I love Yeah. Yeah. I didn't know what else to do, because I was getting really irritated that yeah, just saying the wrong things that you can imagine in the fertility journey,

 

Speaker

man. And well, I don't want to go off on like a tangent, but I feel like I've had this conversation recently with other South Asians, that the culture is just it's a lot of times, there's no tact. Maybe that's just an American thing. I don't know. But people are tactless, and they just kind of say, and especially this is maybe not so related, but just scrutinizing things like looks and wait and talking about it and making comments first thing they see you Oh, you gateway. Oh, you haven't? Oh, you know, I remember somebody calling someone Zadi mossy, which means, like fat and and then he started laughing. And I was just like, mortified, because I'm thinking in my head, that's not really a joke. It's not funny. And do you like how is this person the recipient of this bizarre joke? Which it's not a joke, you know? Or even during my father in law's passing, I remember a lot of people were saying to my spouse and my mother in law, or would they would say to my spouse, oh, you know, you have to be strong for like, don't cry, you have to be strong. And in my mind, I'm like, Excuse me, like they get to grieve, however they want agree. Like, it's not for you to tell them to be strong, but all kinds of weird, you know, at least for our American ears, maybe I don't know, it just doesn't sit right with me. So I love that. That you decided what was helpful for you because I think people here's the thing, right people meanwhile, I think for the most part like family members, right? They mean while they want to help, but a lot of times what people will say if they haven't been in your shoes where they don't know and I think divorce is one of those areas in South Asian culture, which I want to dive a little bit deeper into this. But you know, at least in I know, my family personally, like divorce is pretty unheard of. And so to even broach that topic is from for me personally, it would be very uncomfortable because I would just feel like oh, this is weird. Like nobody knows what what this D word what we speak of like what we speak. And so given that two people definitely get uncomfortable and they don't know what to say because they haven't really probably dealt with it on a major scale.

 

Speaker

Right? You're totally right. In my family, my two older cousins have been through divorce. And also a good friend who my parents know, also South Asian, has been through two divorces. They have a friend, my mom has a friend. So her age, who's been through, I think, two divorces. And there happens to be one other couple in their social circle that's been through divorce as well. And you can probably tell in my voice, like, it's, I'm saying, I'm saying it with a lot of surprise and shock, because it is so rare for us to know about it. Even though it may be happening more often. So I wouldn't say it was the first in the family or four first in our circle. It had been part of our family in the past, and it had been part of my parents social circle, in the past as well. But I think there's always this idea probably for, for most cultures that, oh, well, that's not going to happen here. And knowing, you know, my parents knowing me and my knowing my ex husband now, and what we had together, I don't think anybody saw it coming, which is probably very relatable. And we were open about our problems. And we were talking about them often. And it wasn't in the closet, we weren't hiding anything. And even then, people really didn't know what to say. I mean, I think they just genuinely, like you said, wanted me to feel happier, even though I was going through some tough times. And the natural thing I think most people want to say is don't feel sad, stay strong, like you said, don't cry. But I think not meeting me where I was, was more hurtful than anything else. Like if I am sad if I am relaying this to you, and and I'm telling you, I'm sad. And then I'm lonely or whatever. That's where I need you to let me be. And so I think me offering or controlling the narrative and letting them pick from these two or three phrases helped them meet me where I was, and also me feel like, helped me feel like I you know, my family could understand where I am. Because when you give them the words to say and they can say them back to you. There's I think we're I like to think that they did understand what I'm trying to say. And everybody wants to just be heard and understood, right?

 

Speaker

Yes, that's a basic human need. And I think

 

Speaker

that I think was helpful. Even though it wasn't common, even though it was part of the family at some point, but still rare. We still don't know what to say. And then helping people know what to say is is comforting and helps people be seen and heard helped me be seen and heard.

 

Speaker

It's interesting to me that so divorce was happening in your family, or you know, in your circles, maybe a little bit in your family. And so maybe the stigma wasn't, it wasn't as stigmatized, but for the listeners out there, let's say that they don't, maybe they don't have divorce in their family or there is I know, I personally was raised very much. I was taught to have decorum. And you know, people can't know what's going on here. Or if you know, I was, uh, I was a teenage rebel. You know, I had some, I don't know, I think I got caught drinking. And in 10th grade that was a big to do, like, nobody should know about that, like, you know. And so, from a relatively young age, especially as a teen like I was supposed to be perfect seemed perfect. Go to the best school possible and so on and freakin so forth. So the Indian party's my parents could say, oh, she's going to like this college. Oh, she's going to like what are your daughter's doing? Well, this one's in law school. This one's in med school. Oh look like great, like, perfect. Like, we're all on track right? Now. But the concept of and even when I got married, you know, I married somebody great on paper, like a an orthopedic surgeon who went to Columbia like, yeah, that's like every Indian parents dream. Right. So that was probably fun for my parents to tell. But then, if it would come to something like having to tell people Oh, you know, there's a divorce happening that would be of the utmost utmost shame. And I think there's a lot of shame that goes on in many cultures, but most certainly South Asian culture, shaming that which isn't perfect or whatever, not hitting meeting the standards. So for those people out there, like struggling with secrecy or shame, having a seemingly perfect life, but maybe it's crumbling on me inside and some people I think stay as a detriment to themselves in order to like to save face. Meanwhile, I was listening to a podcast recently and nobody gets a medal for like being miserable at home or nobody sees just so that they have the stamp of that picture perfect family.

 

Speaker

Yeah, so what to do when it's not really spoken about and you are deciding whether or not you should remain secretive or be open about it. That's right. And I think like, at this point, probably the listeners of this podcast have lived enough life to know that what we're all hiding, is not that secretive. It mean, it's happening all the time. And it's not a secret. It's just we're not talking about it. And who is it helping to not talk about it, that's what I that's what motivates me to talk about it is like, if I'm hiding it, and the next person is hiding it, then people are going to feel alone. And for me, things like social media, Facebook has been an amazing place to share humanity. And for me, it's brought so much the more I share, the more it brings me. And when I get scared to share, it makes me feel small. When I when I share, I get so much love back so much feedback in the positive way. It makes me open up more. And I think it's helped my parents see that being open has actually brought pride from the community, like look at your daughter, so brave, and so courageous, to share so many personal things in such a beautiful way. And then other people can really understand what she's going through, why she's going through it, why she's doing what she's doing. It kind of helps people not make the judgmental remarks, and maybe not have so much judgment, because there's so much detail in the post, for example, you can't help but understand exactly what is going on so that there isn't secrecy, it's all out in the open. There's nothing to gossip about at that point. And that kind of what de escalates that whole cultural setup that we have right in our community, which is like, Let's gossip about this, and that and let's talk behind everybody's back, and let's compare. But if it's all out in the open, we're decent stigmatizing life. Because everything messy that I share is true life, isn't it? I mean, like, half the people are going through it. So it must be real life. And if we're going to talk about I mean, if we're not going to talk about it, it's just going to stay Hush, hush, we're going to prolong the stigma, we're going to prolong the secrecy. And it's not doing anybody's mental health any good. I think it just depends on your your personal motivation, my motivation is to make sure that other people know that this is normal and normalizing as much as I can. In public has always been a motivation for me, I don't know where it comes from. But that's why I don't stay secret. That's why I don't I don't keep it to myself. That's why I share almost everything that has happened. I love your

 

Speaker

bravery and your openness. And I think that many women can benefit from seeing your posts. And at the end will you can tell them where they can find you so they can see all this magic that you post. Yeah, so what I think I find so ironic, I guess about all this is, like we said 50% of the population, or 50% of married people get divorced. So it's really not. It's a high amount of people. And yet, the shame still exists. And sometimes women can feel like they're the only ones or why am I the weirdo or why why am I like, why is this happening to me? And all this stuff? Do you have any words on the coping with that like being in the 50%? That does get divorced?

 

Speaker

I think I think I think everybody asked those questions. Why is this happening to me? It's, it's probably just me, it's probably something I did. And I think a lot of that is based on the lack of empowerment, self empowerment, self love, self trust. And so it's not it's not a problem that you're facing these demons for the first time. At this point in in the process, like as you're saying to yourself, I need to do As for me, but I feel like a failure, I need to do the I need to get a divorce. But this makes me feel like a failure or that my marriage was a failure or whatever. This is normal, like, this is what most people are gonna think on both sides, probably, I would, I would guess that the partner is thinking the same thing. And I think it's okay to face that. I think it's normal to face that. And then what happens after you face it is really the crucial part, right? Like after you face this reality that you think you're a failure? Then what are you going to believe it? Or are you going to prove it wrong? In other words, are you going to meet yourself as a person who thinks they're a failure and just keep believing it? Or you're going to meet yourself as a person who thinks you're a failure? And then say, Yeah, that's probably not true. Because I know myself, I know what I'm capable of. I know what I'm willing to do. These are the ways in which I know I have self love, like you can challenge your own thoughts. So of course, I think most people will feel that but then, is it really true? And I think that's a great question to ask. You don't have to believe everything that you think right.

 

 

Prianca Naik