Starting Over After Divorce: Healing, Confidence, and Freedom in Midlife

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to another episode of Bent Not Broken. Heartbreak and trauma may feel like the end of your story, but here it's the beginning of a bold new chapter. I'm your host, Coach Deborah Griffiths, and this is the space where women rise, rebuild, and rediscover their purpose. Remember this truth. You are bet, not broken. My next guest is Karen Timer, a freedom coach, a breathwork facilitator, a massage therapist, and laughter yoga leader with nearly 20 years of experience in health and wellness. After facing challenges like divorce and a wake-up call with cancer, Karen began to feel stuck. In 2018, she decided to embark on a transformative healing journey through coaching and plant medicine, where she discovered deeper ways to heal her past and reclaim her sense of self. Now she empowers women who are 50-something, whether single or starting fresh, to 10x their confidence, rediscover self-worth, and embrace life with clarity and joy. As the creator of the 10x Confidence Journey, Karen helps women reignite excitement for their chapter without burnout or guilt. Welcome Karen to the show.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

Thank you so much, Deborah, for the intro and having me on your show. I'm definitely excited to be here and see where this conversation takes us. It's always a great conversation, and you never know where that's going to lead, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:45

Your life includes several pivotal wake-up calls. There was divorce, cancer, and a sense of feeling stuck. Can you take us back to that season of your life and share what felt most overwhelming at the time?

SPEAKER_01 2:00

So with me, I was a big smoker. Didn't really focus much on health back in the days. We all know we shouldn't be smoking, we shouldn't be eating fast food. I like doing the shoulds and quotations, actually. We shouldn't be doing all these things. Yet we go and do it anyway, right? So I was a big smoker. I ate fast food like it was going out of style. I remember thinking every day I was quitting smoking. And I I and I just would, you know, wake up in the morning and I'd last maybe a half an hour and then I'd go and light up a cigarette. My husband at the time was a smoker. I remember the last time my wake up call happened was when I got in my car. Well, okay, I'm gonna back up a little bit. I didn't smoke one morning for about let's go about maybe four hours, right? And I thought, okay, yay, look at me, go. Get in my car, found a half a cigarette, and lit it up. I remember looking in my mirror and I was so angry with myself. I thought, like, you twit, what are you doing? What would it take for you to quit smoking? Two weeks later, I found out I had cancer. Be careful what you wish for, right? You put it out there and it's like, oh, you're gonna be matched with that. So I was like, okay, I guess this is my wake-up call. One of my wake-up calls. So I went and I had my surgery, and then I thought, how do I quit smoking? Because somebody told me that they won't do surgery on you if you're still a smoker. To make a long story shorter, I ended up quitting smoking, had my surgery, changed my lifestyle, went back to school, learned how to be a holistic nutritionist, started learning how food can really affect our body, it can destroy your health, and it can improve your health. So I went back to school for that. And that's what got me on this journey of health and wellness, right? I did quit smoking, I did stop eating fast food and made big changes. Fast forward some time. I had a business, I was a dog groomer, got burnt out, you know, and also too, I want to add in that I was married. And I got burnt out and I thought, what am I gonna do with myself? This is 23 years, I'm 40, I don't have a university degree, I don't have a college degree. I graduated from grade 12, and that was it. So for me, it was like, okay, well, I didn't like school growing up, but what else? What are my options here? So I ended up going back to school and discovered that I actually love to learn. I just didn't like it back then because we had to take these courses and I was bored to tears. I'm like, why do I need to learn this stuff? I understand now. So I went back to school to become a massage therapist. And I started my own business in this, and because I really just didn't like working for other people because I didn't want other people dictating my life and how much money I'm worth and how much vacation I had. I tried that and it didn't work very well. So for me, it was like, okay, started my own business. And then from there, I was turning 50. Now all of a sudden I'm getting older. I'm in a marriage that I wasn't happy with. We just grew apart. I have nothing terrible to say. We just grew apart. But I remember thinking, oh my God, I'm turning 50. Time goes fast, right? So I thought, okay, here's how the first part of my life looked like. What do I want to do to live the second? Well, I didn't see, I didn't see my husband in my future. So I left my marriage. We sold our house, we moved forward. And then it was kind of like, okay, now I got to sink or swim. What do I do now? I had to really focus on my massage business and growing that. Now I'm a single income. But then in 2018, I was feeling stuck. I had a hard time letting go of my past, past relationship with my parents, financial issues I got myself into, like just all these things, and then letting go of my marriage as well. So I went on a healing journey. And that's really where I started diving into how the mind, body, and spirit work together. That's what got me started on this journey because I just know, and I still say this today, there's more to life than what I'm living, and I'm playing small.

SPEAKER_00 6:23

I love that.

SPEAKER_01 6:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:25

I want to backtrack a little bit. So, how did you actually quit smoking? Was it like the patch? Did you just go turkey? Did you go on a program? What was it that made you successful this time with quitting?

SPEAKER_01 6:42

I don't know if you've ever been a smoker.

SPEAKER_00 6:44

No, but I have issues with my weight. So I'm curious. Got it.

SPEAKER_01 6:48

So there's a book called, and I forget the author's name. His name is Alan Carr. And the book was called Easy Way to Quit Smoking. I think he might even have one for weight now that I think about it. Somebody recommended the book. I read it, and I just remember reading this book, and it's self-hypnosis. I didn't realize that at the time, but now from what I know, that was all self-hypnosis. I remember he had his readers smoking during the book and all this. The last cigarette. He's like, I want you to inhale this really fast and deep. It was so disgusting. I could taste the poison in it, which I never all the years I smoked, I never tasted that stuff. I just remember thinking this was really disgusting. I smoked it right to the very end. It was horrible. I thought, oh no, I'm quitting smoking. I'm so done with this. I put it out and never went back. So, yes, I quit cold turkey. I think when you know deep down that you need to change for whatever reason, you will do it. And unfortunately, as humans, I always say we're not very intelligent at times. We know what to do, but then why don't we do it? Apparently, we need to get a scare. When it gets loud enough, the message of like, oh my gosh, I need to change will change. I'm not sure why we need to get to that point. We as humans need the message to be really loud, so we make a change. Mine was cancer.

SPEAKER_00 8:13

There's a lot of truth to that. Whether you're quitting smoking, trying to lose weight, or even making a decision about leaving a marriage that could be, you know, maybe there's some toxicity to that relation or any kind of relationship. We don't seem to make the change because we're afraid of change, number one. But that change has to be, we have to see that if we make that change, it's actually less painful for us than where we're currently at in our own reality. It's interesting that we wait that long to make some of these decisions and changes that could benefit us at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_01 9:00

Yeah. Change is happening anyway. So why not just embrace it, get uncomfortable with it, and keep moving forward, right? Because the more you do something, the more comfortable it gets. It's like riding a bike. You fall down however many times, you get back up, and then it gets easier as you practice it. That's change. Right. But we as humans get so afraid of change because of the underlying, oh, someone's gonna judge us. I'm not good enough, I'm not smart enough, I'm not worthy enough, whatever the story is in our head. But if we just move past that and do it anyway, it gets easier until the next challenge comes up.

SPEAKER_00 9:40

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 9:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:45

So looking back now, what moment truly became the catalyst for reclaiming your freedom and realizing that there was more to life and even joy that was still ahead of you?

SPEAKER_01 9:57

I think in the last four or five years. You know, I see people and myself where I can get stuck. I get caught in a story. I love stories. I'm on this whole change the story thing right now. But for me, it was seeing how many people have passed. And people at many different ages, it's really hit home because you can focus on the horrible things. We live in a crazy world right now, right? I do. People are passing and people are afraid, and you can get caught up in the fear of whether it be dying, politics, whatever that is. For me, it's about okay, what do I have control over and what do I not? And I want to enjoy my life. Maybe I need to go to retreat, let go of some of my own baggage or my own limiting beliefs so I can move forward and step into the next phase. Maybe it's traveling more. I've started to travel more than I have in the past because I want to enjoy my life. I don't know how long I have here.

SPEAKER_00 11:03

Right.

SPEAKER_01 11:04

I don't want to get caught up in all the fear of what brings me joy and happiness, and how can I help others do the same? Because it's so easy to get caught up in everything going on in the world. I think we forget to come back to ourselves, get ourselves grounded, and what brings us joy at the end of the day, and control what you can control.

SPEAKER_00 11:26

That's a good philosophy, all too often, and I'm guilty of it too. You come to a point in your life where you feel stuck.

SPEAKER_01 11:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:34

You experience that as well. Now, I believe you used plant medicine to help move you forward. Talk to us a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_01 11:45

So there's different plant medicines out there. Some are psychedelics, some are herbs. There's so many different ways. What I do is I go to a retreat and it's a couple of shamans who run the retreat. And what we're doing, ourselves hold on to memory. We just don't know whose memory we're hanging on to because there's a lot of generational trauma. If you believe in that, which I totally 100% do, right? And with this type of journey, it's really helped me let go of things that don't even belong to me and limiting beliefs that we take on as a kid that we hang on to. It's helped me get back in touch. As we grow up, we're taught different things. We take on beliefs that we learn later on in life that aren't true. So what we're doing is now we're taking pieces of ourselves and bringing it back to our heart, bringing it back to us. Who are we truly? Not who we think we are, but who are we truly? Because yeah, it's about coming back to and learning again what brings you joy and what brings you happiness. And how do you want to find that peace and calm and freedom in your life? So that's what this journey for me has helped me do. And I'm still on it. Before I went to this retreat recently, I can be very quick to say I can't do something. I stew in it for ages until I finally go, okay, enough, Carol. Just go do it. You know you can do this. I want to shorten that stew. Right? If I hear that thought comes up that says, Oh, you can't do this, go. That's just a story I've created in my head. I can do this. Go be resourceful. Look up YouTube, reach out to a friend, read a book, whatever it is you need to do, and sit down and focus on it. That was a big thing that came up this weekend for me. Around, no, I just created a story of saying I can't do something to no, I can do it. Maybe you just need to sit longer instead of being very quick to react.

SPEAKER_00 13:48

Take it and breeze for a minute to say, maybe I can, and what do I need to do to do it? That's exactly I think you're correct. You hit the nail on the head. We're told so much of the time that we can't do this or that. And yet we need to take that cannot and make it can in our vocabulary. I do believe in the generational trauma. There's so much that I think we misperceive things. And I've always thought that the moment we're born, our brain acts like a video camera and it starts recording everything. Click, click, click, click, click. We're too young to know what all of that means, but we misperceive some of what's in our memory, and then something'll happen and we'll go back to that recording, but that recording may contain errors.

SPEAKER_01 14:51

Yes. And I'll tell you why, is because our brain takes on, what was I taught? 11 million bits of information per second.

SPEAKER_00 15:02

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 15:03

All our senses, you know, like our taste, our smell, our sight, our visual, and all that, takes on 11 million bits of information per second. We can't, we can't put that into any kind of meaning, right? Your brain has to delete, distort, and generalize information, and it only keeps 134 bits of information. Think of that over the years, as a kid and stuff, which is why two people can go to an event, see the same movie and have different experience. Watch the exact same sunset and have a different experience. One person might be like, oh, this reminds me of this. Nice loving moment. Somebody else might go, oh, this actually I hate sunsets. Some people might hate a sunset because maybe there was trauma that happened at a sunset, right? An event happened. So 134 bits of information we actually keep. And then we need to make meaning of those. So we create a story of what we think that event was all about. When I learned that, I was like, that is crazy. So you think maybe we've deleted or distorted or maybe generalized information out there. So, and there are certain key words that we can use that can give you an idea of, oh, look at that. That got distorted or generalized. Like every time I do this, this happens. Well, every single time in your entire life. So whenever you ask somebody that question, people are like, well, not every time. And then I help break that down more. Interesting. Amazing. We're amazing beings.

SPEAKER_00 16:36

We are. And I think so much of that past trauma or how we that 134 bytes gets us in trouble with relationships. And yeah, it can get us into trouble with relationships where we bring that into each relationship and have to sort through it all.

SPEAKER_01 16:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:58

Many women feel disconnected from their bodies after divorce, illness, or years of emotional stress. How did reconnecting with your body change your healing process? And where did breath work play a role?

SPEAKER_01 17:12

Oh, great question. So I'm still working on getting connected back to the body, right? Because our body gives us so much information. It doesn't speak in our language, it speaks through pain and discomfort. If we listen to what our body is actually telling us, we can make different decisions, right? Like, or it will respond to an emotion. Meaning, um, okay, if we feel happy, we feel calm, light, and good. But then if we start feeling, I don't know, sadness, anger, that kind of thing, we tense up, right? And then that's where, as a massage therapist, our shoulders are up to our ears and all our muscles are really tight, and then it can amplify more pain. But if we listen to our body, or we have digestive issues or whatever that is, right? If we listen to our body and say, okay, like, what are you trying to tell me? Or go find someone to help you out. I'm going to use pain as a good example. I usually get people that come to me when the pain is too much. It's like, I reached for the cupboard and my back went out. Well, I bet you you've been having back pain for quite some time and have ignored it. Because as humans, it's like, I don't have the time, I don't have the money, and I don't have the energy. So we go, okay, I'll wait, wait, wait. And then you cough or you reach for something and your back now gets all buggered up. And then you go, okay, maybe I need to go get help. But if we listened to the body at the beginning, we wouldn't have had this problem as an example. So I'm learning still to listen to my body more and appreciate my body more because I had a lot of issues with my body. You know, you turn 40 and all of a sudden it's like, oh, look at that. I have cellulite, my body's changed. And then perimenopause and menopause. Yeah. It's crazy, right? So what I've learned is like, okay, stop focusing on your flaws because us women are fantastic at focusing on our flaws. Look at our legs, look at our breasts, look at our butt. We're just so hard on ourselves. How about going, thank you, body, because you're allowing me to do X, Y, Z. Thank you, body, for staying healthy. Or if you're not healthy, I'm gonna work on getting healthier. I play on words a lot because whatever we focus on, the energy goes to. Okay. So, or maybe it's the other way around. I always forget. But anyway, it doesn't matter. So I just look at like it's like, thank you, legs, because for working, because this allows me to go horseback riding, walking, whatever it is, and I'll go through my whole body. Like, thank you, because you work, right? Instead of focusing on the flaws of the body. I'm still working through that. I catch myself every now and then. And self-love is not judging our body or ourselves for the way we perceive it. So I'm still working on that and staying quiet to hear the answer because the body's always going to give you the answer if we just sit quiet and listen. Right. So, but it's a work in progress, but I'm getting better at it because I'm sitting quieter. I'm doing maybe some meditation, or if I feel some pain, it's like, oh, what is that? What emotion am I hanging on to here? And then I might start crying, and then all of a sudden, the pain's gone away. I don't have to know what the tears are about. I just know I just release something. Or if it doesn't go away completely, maybe it's a little less. Maybe I need to dive a little bit deeper. I think that was a long answer to your question. No, no, no.

SPEAKER_00 20:53

That's good. You use breath work then to help describe that process.

SPEAKER_01 20:59

So I take people on a journey through breath, helping people let go of the past, feel safe to allow the guard to come down to let go. And breath is, I mean, breath is everything. And it helps to relieve stress, it helps to calm down the nervous system, it helps to regulate the nervous system. Whenever you're feeling anxious, come back to breath. Slow down the breath. I teach people this thing called box breathing. So you breathe in for four, pause, out for four, pause, in for four, pause, and out for four, pause. And you do this slowly, right? You're breathing in for four count and then exhale. So, but what that does is that gives the mind a job because you're counting, right? Gives the mind a, I call it the monkey mind, gives it a job of counting so your body can relax. It's not going into that fight or flight, right? So this can help with insomnia, it can help with circulation. It can help with, again, regulating your nervous system. I know when I'm consistent with my breath work, my focus is way better. I can my sleep is even deeper. Those are generally, for me, what I notice the most and what a lot of my clients notice.

SPEAKER_00 22:18

I just actually had a Yeah. You do this every day. You make it most days, 10 minutes of if I'm feeling super anxious.

SPEAKER_01 22:28

Like this morning, I was sort of feeling calm and then I was feeling a little anxious. I don't even know what I was feeling anxious about, right? And I'm like, Karen, come back to your breath. So I spent a few minutes doing some breathing and I tap as well and remind myself, come here. I'm not out there. Just come back to here. And then it's like this, okay, I can breathe now. Carry on.

SPEAKER_00 22:51

Okay. Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 22:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:55

Women over 50 often carry limiting beliefs around aging, worth, and maybe it's too late. What are the most common beliefs you see, and how do you help women release them without burnout or guilt?

SPEAKER_01 23:10

Oh, the guilt. You gotta love the guilt. I hate guilt. It's such a waste of energy because it's worrying about what other people think. And God forbid I put up boundaries and somebody doesn't like it, right? But as we learn that it's not about them, this is about us.

SPEAKER_00 23:27

Right.

SPEAKER_01 23:27

I love the let them theory. Let people have their own journey.

SPEAKER_00 23:31

Sorry, what was the question again? What are the most common beliefs you see, and how do you help women release them without burnout or guilt?

SPEAKER_01 23:38

I teach people about boundaries and coming back to themselves. I think at a lot of different ages we get that, but especially with women, I can't speak for men. With women, it's like, oh my gosh, I'm 50, my body's changed, I'm hormonal, going through the changes and feeling like it's too late to learn something new. I get a lot of clients who have they're people pleasers, or they are in a career where maybe they're making great money, but they're not being fulfilled anymore. They're just bored of it, but they stay in it because they make good money. But they have this idea of something that they want to do. So I'll ask people if you could live the perfect life, what would that look like? If you could have the perfect career business, whatever that is for you, what does that look like? Most people haven't a clue. However, when we start digging deeper, they've actually got some business idea. Maybe it's a small business or some passion that they want to do and make some money doing it. I help them bring that dream to life. Because it doesn't have to be a dream, you know, whatever that looks like for them. So I help them bring that to life. Let go of that. I can't, I'm too old, it's too late, I don't have the confidence, I don't know where to begin. To building that confidence, having some kind of a path and that passion, like bring that passion to life and enjoy whatever time you have here. And then creating the boundaries of like this is about me and nobody else. And I'm gonna do, you know, obviously, as long as you're not hurting people, boundaries like no is a thing. And it took me a long time to let go of worrying about what other people think.

SPEAKER_00 25:29

I'm on a mission, and especially for people pleasers, creating those boundaries and saying no is really a challenge.

SPEAKER_01 25:39

Yeah, because we worry about judgment, we worry about people not liking us, and you know, we worry about, well, I gotta put them first and not me. And it's like, well, wait a minute. Why do I have to put other people first?

SPEAKER_00 25:50

Right.

SPEAKER_01 25:50

Doesn't mean you don't care about them. But like on the weekend, I was listening to a couple of people and they were saying, Oh, I, you know, I'm here to help my friend, I'm here to do this, I'm here to do that. Like it was for everybody else. But it's like, well, wait a minute, what about you? Aren't you here to help you become a better person, come back to you? So you can also help guide other people. You're not here to fix people, you're not here to tell people what to do. That was tough for me to just sit and listen because I always want to help people, but I've learned to be a better listener instead of telling people what to do.

SPEAKER_00 26:28

Got it.

SPEAKER_01 26:29

Right.

SPEAKER_00 26:29

As a freedom coach, you use the word freedom very intentionally. What does freedom mean to you now? And how do you help women create that for themselves in their next chapter?

SPEAKER_01 26:40

Ah, great question. Well, freedom for me is about choices, right? I want choices to be able to do what I want, when I want, how I want, live the best life that I can. It's really about having fun and laughing and bringing joy into this world and hopefully make it a better place than what I came into. But having that freedom of emotional freedom as well. So letting go of the things, the limiting belief, continuing, because I think this is a forever journey, but continuing, letting go of those limiting beliefs that keep me stuck and geographical freedom. You know, I love to travel, I love to bring my business wherever it is that I work for my laptop. So yeah, it's just feeling free. I don't even know how to describe that feeling, but I've felt it before, and it just feels really I don't know if you could imagine what freeing would feel like. Liberating. Liberating. I like that word, liberating.

SPEAKER_00 27:44

Yeah. So yeah. For women listening who may be newly divorced or starting fresh after a major life event, what is one mindset shift or self-love practice that can help them right now?

SPEAKER_01 27:58

Well, as much as a lot of people resist this, journaling. Journaling helped until once I finally stopped resisting it, journaling helped me out so much after I left my marriage. And I remember my friend who's also a coach, and she would just say, Karen, just journal. I'm like, I hate writing and I don't want to journal. And she goes, perfect, write that down. So finally one day I did because I was going through a lot of anger. And I just started journaling. And I probably wrote out about 10 to 15 pages of stuff. What's your whatever, you know, dear Deborah letter. Write it. Whatever your name, whoever's listening, whatever your name is, do it, do it, just write something to your feeling. But what I recommend is to write out all the yucky stuff, like nobody's gonna read it. You can set it on fire if you want to afterwards, right? But write out all the stuff you're feeling, all the hate, all the anger, all the sadness, everything that everybody has done, and then flip it. Flip the story. What has this actually taught me? What can I do to move forward? What can I do today? And maybe it's just honoring yourself and having a nice hot bath or going for a walk in nature, right? What can you do different? Change the story and then burn it. What would you like to happen? I call it the burning bowl ceremony. There's something about watching it just float away. What do you want to let go of? What do you want to call in?

SPEAKER_00 29:28

Okay. Perfect.

SPEAKER_01 29:29

That changed the world.

SPEAKER_00 29:30

How can our listeners learn more about you or get in touch with you if they're interested in your coaching?

SPEAKER_01 29:38

Absolutely. Love to have a conversation with people. So you can follow me on social media. I am mostly on Facebook. I surrendered to social media. So now I'm slowly getting into Instagram a little more. Hopefully, gonna have more and have my own YouTube. You can watch on YouTube as well. You can go to my website, KarenTimer.com, book an appointment. Would love, love, love to connect with you and just have a conversation.

SPEAKER_00 30:03

Perfect. I'll have all of that in the show notes. Karen, this has been a terrific conversation. And I know I'm taking away some great tidbits that I want to start implementing myself. So thank you so much for your time today. And I really appreciate your everything.

SPEAKER_01 30:21

Thank you so much, Deborah, for having me on your show, and I look forward to connecting.

SPEAKER_00 30:27

Thank you for listening to today's episode of Bent Not Broken. I hope that this episode reminded you that even through life's toughest moments, you are bent, not broken. If this message inspired you, please share, rate, review, and subscribe, as it helps us reach more women who are ready to rise and rebuild. And until next time, keep living bold and walking in your purpose.