Ep #251: Your Post-Divorce Comeback: 3 Reasons Running Helps with Sade Curry

Welcome to The Not Your Average Runner Podcast. If you’re a woman who has never felt athletic but you still dream about becoming a runner, you are in the right place. I’m Jill Angie, a certified running and life coach, and I teach women how to start running, feel confident, and change their lives. And now I want to help you.

Hey runners, so I am here with an extremely special guest this week. Her name is Sade Curry and she is a life coach and host of the Dating After Divorce podcast. She coaches and teaches women real strategies for recovering from divorce and finding love again. And y’all know that this work is very near and dear to my heart because I recently went through the same process.

Sade’s coaching philosophy is to help women succeed by practicing personal leadership and autonomy in their life, work, and relationships. And we are going to dive into all things dating after divorce, divorce in general, confidence after divorce, but most importantly three reasons why running can help you come back from divorce.

Jill: So thank you so much for joining me here today, Sade. Welcome to the show.

Sade: Thank you, Jill, thanks for having me. I am looking forward to this conversation.

Jill: I am too. And we connected a while ago through another coaching program that we’re in together and once I found out the work that you do in the world, I was like, “Everybody needs to know about this.” And I thought, because we kind of chatted and I’m like, I don’t know if this is really running related but we’ve got to figure out a way to have a conversation. And then you actually said, “Well, running was a big part of my post-divorce comeback.”

And so obviously, now we definitely need to talk about it because I’m sure there’s at least one woman listening to this show that’s on the divorce path. Actually, let’s kind of back it up a little bit though. Can you tell everyone a little bit about yourself and how you came to be doing this work in the world?

Sade: Yeah, absolutely. So I became a divorce coach in 2016 after my own divorce. So the divorce process started 2015, January of 2015, and I was blindsided by it. My marriage, we were together 17 years and the divorce itself took three years, so we can say it was a 20-year journey.

And the marriage was rough right from the beginning, like all the things, emotional abuse. He eventually, about 14 years in, got a diagnosis of bipolar. So there was like just moodiness, emotional abuse, psychological abuse, towards the end financial abuse. It was just all the yucky things but I had that good old perseverance built in me through my spiritual background and my family background. It was all just hang in there for everything, the kids, and life, and the marriage itself and you make everything work.

And I was just a fixer and I was always fixing everything. And I kind of propped him up really well in the world, so we looked good as a family. It looked like everything was together, we had a good income, we had beautiful children. But towards the end I began setting some boundaries because my kids were getting a little bit older, getting into their teens.

And anyone who has teens knows like they start to want to have a life of their own and I couldn’t protect them at that point from their father’s issues and his need to control and his lack of boundaries and all of that. And so I started to see that, oh, this really is a problem. But I still didn’t think about leaving, I was just like, okay, well I’m just going to set some boundaries to keep the family safe.

Well, he wasn’t there for the boundaries and he filed for a divorce, that’s the really long story cut short. We tried all the things, counseling, all of that. I read all the books, I read all the books about his diagnosis. He did not read a single book about his diagnosis. And so when he filed for a divorce and said he wasn’t here for this work I was like, something is really wrong here where I am the person who’s holding everything together.

And the person, at least that I saw in that moment as the problem is the one who says, “Yeah, I’m not here for this and I’m walking away.” And ended up walking away with most of our assets and half of our family, it was just really the outcome to me was like how does this end this way? I did everything right and how did it end this way?

So I went on a really deep like reset journey. I was like something is wrong and obviously I need to figure out what it is. And so I did codependency recovery, therapy, coaching, I was on YouTube all the time watching all the videos about narcissism and codependency and really trying to figure out what went wrong.

And in that process I found out so much. I was like, oh, people don’t tell divorced women this, they don’t tell married women this. There’s all this information, there’s all this thought work, there’s all this recovery work and we’re not educated about it at all. And so that’s what I decided to do, become a coach.

And I just started up on my own with my story and the tools I was using, sharing with other divorced women. And as things went along and I recovered and got married again people started reaching out to me specifically about my dating journey and saying, well how did you meet someone? And how did that happen? And I narrowed my niche right around 2018 to dating after divorce.

Jill: Oh my gosh. I’m fascinated by your journey. And the whole concept of I’ve just got to stay in to make it good, right, I’m a fixer, I’m going to prop him up, I’m going to make all of this look good. Do you think that that’s a common theme with women, like I already invested so much into this that I can’t give up on it now?

Sade: Yeah, it’s partly I’ve invested so much in it, but I think it goes a little bit deeper to how women are socialized to think about their relationships. So many times, and for me this was very much true, I came from a Christian background and so the woman’s value is very much tied to her family.

Jill: Yeah.

Sade: Very much tied to getting married and being a homemaker or some version of the homemaker. Some church denominations are more modernized where it’s like, oh, yeah, you can have a job, but still everything in the home is your job, right? And the children and how well the children present to the world. Basically how your family presents to the world, your value is tied to that. And so you can’t, I mean, if your family falls apart, then who are you then? What value do you have if you don’t have a family?

And I think that’s where I came from. It wasn’t so much about how much time I had invested into it, it was more of like this is why I’m here on Earth, is to hold this marriage and family together. And it wasn’t a conscious thought, but it was very much in my programming and very much in the way that I was thinking.

Jill: Right, because it’s not even like you’re thinking, “Oh, this is my job to hold the family together.” It’s just, if you’re socialized that way, it’s just like gravity, you just take it for granted. Like this is the truth and then I have all these other thoughts on top of it. But you don’t even question that core belief.

Sade: Exactly, I wasn’t questioning anything. I did not question that core belief at all. I was on autopilot and it didn’t occur to me that I could do something different, or that things could be different, or that I could go on a different path.

And I remember towards the end of the marriage as things got worse and worse and worse and he really just went into the depths of his own mental illness, I just became numb. Because anytime feelings would come up, and you know our feelings come to tell us, hey, hello, something is up, I would numb because I couldn’t look at those feelings.

Now looking back I realize what was happening. I just know that I was like I can’t listen to this because this doesn’t make any sense. And so I would numb my feelings. I remember by the time we separated I didn’t feel anything about anything in my life. I had like zero feelings.

Jill: Wow. And this is kind of a weird way to question that, but what did it feel like to have no feelings? Especially if you were somebody who previously had experienced a lot of emotions, like to be at a place where you weren’t really experiencing them, what was that like?

Sade: So it looks like your kids win a gold medal and you feel nothing. Like your kids are playing and you watch them playing, and you’re just like, “Oh, they’re playing.” And you remember when you used to feel joy watching your children and now you’re looking at them and you feel nothing.

Jill: Yeah.

Sade: Or the simple pleasures. Like I was the kind of person when I was a young person in my 20s and maybe even early 30s I would watch the sunset and I’d just be like, “Oh, that’s such a glorious sunset.” And I would sit on the porch with a cup of tea and just watch the sunset. And I loved nature, still do, animals, and none of it I felt nothing about things that would normally bring you joy or just peace or happiness. And it’s because I had pushed my negative feelings down so far that that process also numbed all of my positive feelings.

Jill: So,  okay, I love this and I have a feeling that running may have played a part in helping you regain your emotional life. So why don’t we kind of start talking a little bit about that? And we have so much to talk about today, but I think this is a perfect time to sort of segue into what are the three ways that running helped you post-divorce? Like the papers have been filed, the decisions have been made, and now you’re like, “Oh shit. Now what?”

Sade: So in some ways some of the worst things that happened in the divorce also became some of the best thing. So for mine and the children’s safety I ended up leaving our marital home. We had this gorgeous seven-bedroom, five-bathroom, 4,000 square foot home with like I think a third of an acre. It was amazing. But he wouldn’t leave and it wasn’t safe to be around him so I took the kids and left.

And he shut me out of all the bank accounts. It was just crazy how he was able to do that so quickly. And I think part of it was he was planning this ahead of time. But, you know, so I ended up with not a whole lot of money and nowhere to go. I stayed with a friend for a while with the kids but, you know, you kind of have to get your shit together pretty quickly.

So I found this little farmhouse that hadn’t been updated, it felt like, since the 60s, in the middle of like unincorporated rural Missouri. And that was all that I could afford at the time. And so we moved into that little farmhouse and we were surrounded by farms and people with chickens and horses. And it turned out to be really healing to be in that space with so much nature.

And what I did was I didn’t have enough money to join a gym and all the fancy things that I was accustomed to. So I was like, okay, how do I exercise without paying any money? It’s like, okay, get your running shoes and just run. And so I started running. I would run in the neighborhood and it felt so good.

And one of the things that I think can really help is the feeling of momentum that comes with the act of running. Which you don’t quite get that with like yoga or being on a treadmill or other types of exercise. I think running is unique in that. When you’re standing still, that can sort of represent being stuck, which a divorce that takes a long time can give you that feeling.

But when you start running, you’re moving, you’re seeing things. And I feel like that just really reset my brain and gave me sort of like it gave me the circumstance line that allowed me to think, yeah, I’m moving. I’m moving forward, things are happening. I’m not stuck. So I think the feeling you get from running as opposed to other exercise types can be really amazing.

I was really down with my emotional health. I was like, we’ve got to go, I’m grieving, I’m sad, I’m confused about a lot of things. The feeling of depression that you get when you’re going through a divorce is like you’re moving through mud. And so the other thing running did for me was that it helped me create a body, which I wasn’t like sculpting or like trying to have a beach body at the time, I just wanted a body that supported what I was doing with my mental health. Because like I said, I dove really deep into my mental health.

I was like, we need to fix this, we need to figure out what’s going on. And my body was part of that journey. A lot of our brain, a lot of our nerve endings is in our gut. I don’t quite have all the science behind it but I believed the people who say that that’s true when I read it. I’m like, yeah, that seems to work out, when I eat this, I feel this. It’s different depending on what you eat.

And I just realized that, okay, I can move through this faster if my body is part of the journey.

Jill: Yeah.

Sade: So running, and I think other types of exercise can contribute to this too. Running was what I had at the time and it really did. Like I wasn’t having to deal with fatigue, I had energy. So even though during the day thinking about the divorce or the post-divorce abuse that was going on, or when my ex was using the court system against me, I had a body that was able to support me and help me instead of being one more thing that I was having to worry about.

Jill: Right. Oh, I love that.

Sade: Yeah. And then the third thing was, like I said earlier, was being able to set a goal. So my divorce took three years so it was really hard to do any kind of planning of what my life would look like or what I was going to do. But I did little things like a 30-day 5K a day challenge for 30 days. And I’m trying to remember right now if I accomplished all 30 days. I think I posted on Facebook through like day 20 something, so I think I completed it.

Jill: That’s impressive.

Sade: Right? Yeah. And some days it was walking half the way, running half the way depending on what was happening with my body. But it gave me a way to have accomplishments, to achieve things, and to build my confidence in myself. Like hey, you can achieve things, you can do things, you can make things happen. You might not be able to make this big thing happened today, but you can make other things happen.

So when I was looking for work and trying to go back to work, when I was looking for the best therapist for my kids or the best therapist for myself, or when I was trying to find a better home for us to move into, all of those things required a certain amount of self-confidence. Especially because I had had a partner for 20 years. Whatever kind of partner that was, I had a partner.

To believe that I could do things on my own. That I could set goals on my own and achieve them and move towards them. Running, setting those challenges that I did really, really helped me say, yeah, I can check this big thing off.

Jill: Yeah. So what I’m hearing is that in many different ways, running helped you create evidence that not only were you going to be okay, but you were going to thrive.

Sade: Yes. Yes, and I could see evidence of me thriving in the moment. While the big ugly thing was happening there were these little pockets of thriving. There was this like, oh, the runner’s high, oh my God, I feel really good after that run. Or just the sweat dripping down after running on a hot day. It’s like, wow, I don’t know, I’m doing things, right? It just made me feel so powerful and so confident.

At that point I did like a little sales network marketing thing during that period. I made no money doing it, but even just reading the books. They would say, hey, this is the book we’re reading this week, everyone needs to read it in seven days. And I’d be like, “Yeah.” Little things like that, like I finished the book, I made five calls today. All of those things added up to a lot of self-confidence.

Jill: Yeah. Oh, I love that. And I think there really is something about, somebody has explained all the science to me and I’ve completely forgotten it. But there is something about just the movement of your body that kind of unlocks feeling and unlocks just so much in your brain so that you can see possibilities instead of seeing just closed doors.

Sade: Yes. Yeah, I would get ideas for stuff. You know, ideas for my coaching business, ideas of what to post to market my business while I was running.

Jill: I love this. So, okay, I think one of the things that I’m hearing from you is that after the divorce is in progress or has been completed or whatever, that it’s very important to take steps to sort of rebuild yourself, in particular your emotional life. So can you talk a little bit about what that means?

Sade: Yeah, so one of the things that I discovered kind of like in my coaching education and getting certified and learning, and I figured this out after I had experienced it.

So, like I said, I dove into recovery. I actually did a 12-step recovery program for codependency because a lot of, I think, my issues were tied to being like a people pleaser from a trauma perspective. And one of the, I guess you could say one of the symptoms of that is like arrested development.

Like codependency is an addiction in its own way. If it’s severe it’s an addiction in its own way and it’s tied to approval, and how you look, and what people say and things like that. Well, for those of us who have that traumatic background in childhood and come into a marriage, because the marriage is like the solution.

So for the addict or the alcoholic, the drink is the solution and the drug is the solution. And studies have shown that their brains actually get arrested in the periods where there is heavy drinking and things like that. But for the codependent, because now you have the marriage you have the thing, there’s actually no more incentive to grow as a human.

There’s no incentive to develop and do things and go outside your comfort zone. Because now you’re in this perfect comfort zone. You’re in your perfect life, you have a husband and children.

Jill: Right, it makes perfect sense. You’re like, I have achieved the thing I was supposed to achieve. Now I’m just going to coast and I don’t need to develop or anything further because this is it. This was the goal. And here I am, 22 years old, goal achieved, check.

Sade: Yes. And so there are parts of my development that I experienced as having gone to sleep during my marriage. And I didn’t know this but I started doing all my recovery stuff and my feelings, my thoughts and my feelings and the way I showed up in the world began to shift. And I literally felt a shift from feeling like a teenager amongst other people.

Like I would go into into church, or I would go into the workplace. or a seminar or whatever and I would always have this feeling like I was a kid and everybody was an adult. And I watched that shift over the few years after my marriage as I did my own thought work and got coaching. And I was like, what is this thing? Because no one had ever described it to me. And it was later that I found out that I was growing up mentally and emotionally through thought work.

Jill: Wow.

Sade: It was crazy.

Jill: That’s mind blowing. And I wonder like, and you were growing up on purpose too. As opposed to when you’re younger and things happen to you and you just sort of have to grow up to kind of meet the challenges. You were now like almost directing your own maturity.

Sade: Yes. And so my theory is that we’re supposed to keep growing up.

Jill: Yeah.

Sade: Like our whole lives.

Jill: The whole time.

Sade: The whole time. You’re supposed to experiencing shifts, and transformations, and growth that feels like that throughout your life.

Jill: I love this.

Sade: I was like, I think sometimes when you’re a kid, you feel it. Like when we look forward to like, you know, I can’t wait till I’m 18. And then you’re 18 you’re like, what was I looking forward to? Some of those shifts keep happening through the teen years but I think somewhere along the way for many people it just stops.

Jill: Yeah. So I just had this moment where I realized how much that is like running, that emotional maturity is not supposed to be easy and comfortable and smooth. That it’s supposed to feel kind of like ass sometimes, but it’s totally worth it. And I’m like running is like that too because a lot of the time it feels like ass, but it’s still worth it because you continue to kind of evolve yourself as a runner. So that’s a total aside, but I was like, ooh, it’s just like running.

Sade: So rebuilding yourself after a divorce, and just to say this to anyone who’s been through divorce or gone through divorce, this might have happened to you too. Where if you look back you might see where there are gaps in your development.

Like if you feel crippled in your self-confidence, you’re not really supposed to feel super crippled and unable to take action in the world when you’re 40. You’re supposed to be able, this doesn’t really feel good but you’re supposed to be able to say, “Yeah, I want to do that. I think I can do that.”

Jill: Yeah.

Sade: You’re supposed to at least be able to say, “I might be able to do that,” like as an adult. So if you have a lot of crippling, I had crippling anxiety, I had crippling shame, I had feelings of inferiority that were not appropriate to my age at all.

And so it’s important to take a moment after a divorce or during a divorce to say, hey, are there parts of me that I’ve left behind in this marriage or before this marriage that I need to bring forward? Are there things about myself that I need to rediscover or bring up? Are their hopes, and dreams, and goals that I had that I need to rethink my ability to bring them to life?

And I think that self-discovery process is just huge. It’s also important to say, ask yourself, like who am I really? Because if you are like me where your identity was in the marriage, you might not know who you are. You kind of need to do that work to bring you back.

Jill: Well, and something you said a few minutes ago really struck me when you said, I felt like parts of me were asleep. I just literally was not, I was just checked out emotionally. And I can really relate to that because I feel like my first marriage, I remember the wedding really well and I remember the honeymoon really well.

And then I feel like the next 10 years I don’t have a lot of memory, because I think I was just sort of like, I was like, all right, well I got the marriage, I got the big house, that’s it. Right? And it just feels like, like that word sleeping is just so, just really resonates.

And then yeah, and then once you leave the marriage, then you really have to decide. Because if you don’t decide that I’m going to rebuild myself and evolve into the person I want to be, then you’re just going to repeat the same marriage.

Sade: You’re going to repeat the same marriage or you’re going to stay in limbo. So I think a lot of women stay in this limbo where they’re still looking back at the marriage. And I think we were going to talk about that, like everything was still in the marriage and then you just lost the marriage. And all the time is spent sort of like spinning in what was lost in the marriage.

Jill: it’s like, oh, I just wasted so much time.

Sade: Right, I just wasted so much time, I just lost everything. I play this really cute trick on my brain on that because 20 years, I was like that’s a lot of time, right?

Jill: Yeah.

Sade: And so I studied engineering in college, so I like math. I like to do little math logical tricks to add it to my thought work.

Jill: I love this.

Sade: And I did the thing, so I was like, okay, so I got divorced at 39, right? And I would say when I started falling asleep in my life was right around 19, was when I was kind of boy crazy and really wanted to get married. I was like that’s the whole thing I need to do with my life.

And I was like, okay, so 20 years. If I were 19 again, knowing what I know, what would I do differently? And I sort of charted out this different path based on being a coach, having grown up, transformed my life, knowing what I wanted to do. I hadn’t totally transformed it to what it is today yet, but I was thinking about what I wanted to do. And I was like I would do all of these things a lot earlier and take this other trajectory. And then I just told myself, let’s live like we’re 19 again.

Jill: Yes.

Sade: Because a 19-year-old, I don’t know, let’s just round it up to 20. A 20-year-old might live 60 years and live to 80, right? And I was like, well, I don’t know, I’m 40. I could live 50 years. So give or take, I’m 19 again, let’s go.

Jill: I absolutely love that. Right, because that means you haven’t, and we’ve never wasted time, obviously. We just are where we are and that’s what we’ve got. Because when you’re 20 years old you’re not thinking all of the like, oh my gosh, I’m going to die soon. Most 20-year-olds, I think, are not thinking that. And so without all of those bullshit thoughts in their heads, they’re able to experience the joy of life in a totally different way.

Sade: Yes. Because to them, they have the thought, my whole life is ahead of me.

Jill: Yes. And I think that thought is so powerful because it’s true whether you’re 80 or 20, you still have your whole life ahead of you, right?

Sade: Exactly, 100%. That was exactly it. And I was just like, yeah, I have my whole life ahead of me. I was like, yeah, some people die at 60 and like that’s plenty. I’m like, okay, I’m 40, if I add 40 years. Like I just kind of did all this math.

Jill: I love this.

Sade: And I was like there’s plenty of time to do everything. Like I would say this person became president at this age, I could do anything. I could literally start today and do anything.

Jill: Exactly.

Sade: And that brings me to the third thing, that philosophy that kind of like really helped me and I try to pass on to my clients. Which is that you get to do whatever you want after a divorce. You really, really do. Divorced women, listen, we get to do whatever we want.

Jill: We can go on Tinder and date boys on Tinder.

Sade: Yes, we’ve paid our dues.

Jill: Even if you’re 50. Yes.

Sade: Here’s the thing, it’s fascinating to me how many people have opinions about what divorced people should and shouldn’t do.

Jill: Yeah.

Sade: I heard of a formula, there’s a formula that you should stay single one year for every three years that you were married in order to, I was like, no.

Jill: You’re just like I’m an engineer, show me the proof. I feel like this is not a thing.

Sade: Right? And so people just seem to have great ideas for what divorced people should be doing. I’m like, no, no, you don’t. I went full on rebel mode after my divorce. I was like, listen, I listened to all of y’all when I was a young person. And you said if I was a virgin when I got married, and if I kept the home, and took care of all the kiddos, and if I read all the books and did all the things, then I would be happy. Guess what? You lied.

Jill: Yeah.

Sade: It didn’t work. So I’m just going to do it my way now.

Jill: I absolutely love this. Well, so what are some of the, like give us some examples of things that you did after your divorce that your programming might have said, like, oh, no, no, no, you shouldn’t do that. Like let’s talk about some things that you did that like totally broke the rules.

Sade: Well, one, I stopped going to church. So yeah, for several years I stopped going to church because I was like, at least the churches I was going to and I’ve heard from other people that many churches don’t know— Like you don’t know how, you don’t know what you’re doing. You are saying words that do not apply to real life.

Because I was living in the depths, in the muck of my reality. And I would go and sit there on Sunday and I’d be like, what you’re saying has nothing to do with the real world, like nothing. I’m a single mom with kids and my ex is spending all of our money on his attorney and the court isn’t doing anything. Lawyers aren’t doing anything. And my kids are going through it and I’m like, what you are saying right now means nothing about anything.

And even just talking to people, and then people’s responses to the divorce were like so all across the board. And there were many responses that I was like, oh, I don’t know why I thought you knew something or like you were super smart. But obviously you’re not smart in this area, in this part of life. So I realized that there was such a gap between what people said, both in church and outside of the church, just humans, what humans said and whether or not what they said was true.

Jill: Yeah.

Sade: As a codependent we love sweet words. So when people say things, we automatically think it’s true because we would never lie, right? And I learned about understanding what a frame of reference was and to realize that other humans have a different frame of reference from me. Which we’re supposed to develop that at age four, just so you know. It’s called theory of mind.

That’s the age you’re supposed to learn that what someone else is thinking, which at The Life Coach School we call it the models, that other people have their model and I have my model. I didn’t learn that until I was like 40. So this is how bad it can be.

Jill: Right? You’re just like, oh, there is a truth and that’s it, right?

Sade: Yes, and if this person says it’s true, then I don’t know, it’s probably true.

Jill: Yeah, wow.

Sade: And then another symptom of codependency is you’re valuing other people’s thinking over your thinking. So if you say something and I say something or I think something different, I will second guess what I’m thinking versus second guessing what you’re thinking. And people pleasers tend to do that so much and we take things so personally because other people must be right, other people must know better.

Jill: Right.

Sade: And then we’re constantly shape shifting to accommodate what other people are saying. Even if we hear 10 different things from 10 different people, which is what creates you being stuck because you’re trying to create a life that fits the frame of reference that everyone around you has.

Jill: Yeah.

Sade: Crazy, me.

Jill: Right, you’re trying to please literally everyone with completely opposite opinions to each other.

Sade: Yes, 100%.

Jill: Okay, so talk to me about easing back into dating, because I have a very close friend who’s, I mean, I’ve been through this dating after divorce. I found it to be just an absolute joyride, it was so much fun. Not everybody thinks that way.

Sade: That’s true.

Jill: So if you’re somebody who’s divorced and thinking, oh gosh, I kind of want to get out there, but I have all the thoughts like I’m too old, or it’s been too long, nobody’s going to want me, what’s the first step? How do you get back out there, so to speak?

Sade: Yeah. So I mean I would say, there are so many thoughts about it. I think there are more thoughts about dating than anything else out there. Actually, I wrote a post today about how if you wanted to get a job, no one would come to you and say, well you’re too old to get a job and you’re too this to get a job. And you shouldn’t say it’s terrible out there. It’s a horror show out there getting a job. Even if things are hard or the economy is down, you’re still encouraged to go out and get a job, right?

Jill: Yeah.

Sade: When it comes to dating everyone’s like, still the same. So I think it’s this weird volume, there’s this gigantic volume of thoughts that are not helpful to dating that are out there. So I would say the first step would be to believe the statement that your thoughts create your results and that you can choose your thoughts.

Because otherwise, you can do all of the, there are people who are on the apps, swiping every day thinking it’s a numbers game. But the way they’re showing up with so many beliefs that don’t help them, like all of these men are trash, right?

Jill: Yeah, that’s not a helpful thought at all.

Sade: It’s not a helpful thought.

Jill: Right, because when you think that thought you feel, I don’t know, pissed off and resentful and discouraged.

Sade: Right? And it shows. One of the tips that, and if you go to my podcast and look for how to create a dating profile, you’ll hear me talk about this. When you have thoughts like all of these men are married, and they’re all just this, and they’re all just that, it shows up somewhere. It often shows up in the way women write their dating profile.

Jill: Yeah.

Sade: So women will go to their dating profile and say, “I’m not interested in a hookup. If you’re married, please swipe left.” And they will literally speak to all the people they don’t want in a bid to get rid of all the people they don’t want. But all that does is signal to those people that you’ve fallen for this before and it’s worth a try.

Jill: Yeah.

Sade: So if you say no married men, the married man who’s trying to have an affair is like, “Okay, well, obviously, she’s been taken in before. She’ll probably fall for me if I do it right.”

Jill: Oh my gosh, I never even thought of it that way, but you’re right. That’s exactly what’s going to happen.

Sade: That’s exactly what happens. And they wonder, like I’m doing all the things and it’s not working. It’s because of your thoughts.

Jill: Yeah. So good.

Sade: And I teach my clients, like listen, you’re only speaking to the one guy. You’re speaking to that one guy, what does he need to see on your profile? And so I encourage them to fill their minds with thoughts about the one guy, the one amazing guy. You know, he’s hot, he’s cute, he gets you. He’s kind, he’s empathetic, he shows up, he makes efforts, he wants a family, whatever. That guy. And then what does he need to see in your profile?

And that comes from having thoughts about that guy, versus having thoughts about all these other people.

Jill: Yeah.

Sade: So if you can get to the point where you truly believe that your thoughts create your results and you work through your thoughts, it changes the game when it comes to dating.

Jill: Yeah. Oh, I’m just reviewing my own dating life way back when and it’s so true. It’s absolutely 100% true. Like that is the key, if you just decide, I believe this person is out there, you will find that person.

Sade: Yeah, and you can even choose thoughts, even if you can’t get to he’s out there, you can choose the thoughts in between. Like there was a period where I, so I live in Missouri and my results weren’t great at that time. And I just felt like maybe he’s not in Missouri, maybe he’s not here.

Jill: Yeah.

Sade: So I was like, okay, well I’m planning to move, I was planning to move out of state once my divorce was finalized. I was like I’m going to move out of state or whatever so I’m like, I’m just going to have fun with dating and practice, right? And then I’ll find my guy when I move to whatever beach town that I’m planning to move to.

Jill: Yeah.

Sade: Well guess what? That softened my thoughts enough to be like, okay, he’s not here but there’s a lot of fun guys here that I can have fun with, that I could meet, that I could make friends with. I’m just going to do that. And speaking to those guys, so I was looking for people who were intellectually compatible, people who like books, people who love to dance, that was all the things that you saw on my profile.

And within, I don’t know, it was less than six months when I made that shift from looking for my partner in my state to looking for just interesting people in my state that I met my husband. It was like, oh, well, there he is.

Jill: There he is.

Sade: But as long as I didn’t go to the thoughts of like everyone’s trash and it’s terrible, even having midway thoughts about what was possible was enough.

Jill: Oh, I love that. And something you said just a couple sentences ago was I looked at it as practice, right? I feel like anything in our life, if we’re expecting that we should get the result right away and we’re putting all of this emphasis on the result, it’s probably not going to happen real easily. But when you say to yourself, I’m just going to do this thing to practice so that I can get really good at it, it’s that softening, right? And the next thing you know, all the good shit is happening.

Sade: Yeah, yeah. When you’re like, okay, I got to meet him and it’s got to happen, then you create pressure. You feel pressure. And what do we do when we’re under pressure? We choke, we freeze, we hustle, we’re desperate, we’re clingy. It’s not good.

Jill: Exactly. Exactly. Oh my gosh, this has been such a fun conversation. And I mean, I think it’s the concept of the practice, I think my runners can relate to this so I’m going to draw a parallel here.

But when we approach running thinking every run has to be amazing because I’m training for this race. And if I don’t do really well at every single run, I’m going to fail at my race. And that’s when people end up getting injured or feeling so discouraged that they quit. But if you just kind of look at it as like, oh, I’m going to go out and practice running today, and just kind of soften into that, then it becomes much more relaxed. So that whole thought process, I think, is applicable to literally everything in life.

Sade: 100%.

Jill: So good. Okay, so where can people find you? How can they work with you? Tell us all the things.

Sade: Absolutely. So I work with women who are dating after their divorce. They tend to be kind of like in their late 30s and up range. I have clients in their 40s, 50s, 60s. I even have a 72-year-old that I’m working with.

Jill: I love this.

Sade: I know. I know, so much is possible, right? My favorite place to hang out is on my podcast. It’s simply called Dating After Divorce, so you can find me there. I have not only teaching episodes on how to date after divorce, but also interviews on women who are happily married after their divorces. And that series is ongoing, like more and more people just keep raising their hand and saying, “Yeah, I did it.”

And I have a little theory about it that I’ll just say is that when people get remarried after a divorce the reason the internet isn’t full of those happy stories is because they just go off and live their happily ever afters. And they forget to come back and tell people, hey, actually it does work. You can date and get married again.

Jill: I love that, they’re just like, well, I’m not like all stressed out about it so I’m just going to get on and live my life.

Sade: Right? So the people who are telling all the stories that we listen to are literally people who are like dating and miserable.

Jill: Oh my gosh, okay.

Sade: And that’s what is creating the body of content. So I’m really proud of my podcast because I’m collecting these amazing stories that will give you hope and encouragement. But you can find me on Instagram at Sade Curry, S-A-D-E C-U-R-R-Y, my website sadecurry.com, same thing, S-A-D-E C-U-R-R-Y. I’m also on Facebook, but my podcast has all my links in there and that’s like my favorite place to be.

Jill: And we’ll put them all in the show notes as well so that everybody can just easily click over there. And so, yeah, so you coach women one on one to like really guide them through their divorce and onwards.

Sade: Yes, 100%. So we coach one on one. It’s a combination of maybe some leftover self-discovery work, some healing from people pleasing, boundaries. Sometimes some love addiction, like some of those, if you have like really strong over attachment to the people you date, there might be some love addiction in there.

So we do some of that work side by side, like parallel with practicing dating strategies, putting yourself out there, learning to be visible, learning to feel safe, like when you’re meeting new people, learning to feel safe when you’re on the apps. Like really relaxing into a process that cleans, I call it, the first thing we do is we clean out all the trash that’s in your dating queue so that you can stop stressing out about those people who aren’t for you anyway. And then we just go from there.

And then towards the end, I like to mention this part because often people think, okay, I found the guy, I’m good. There’s a little bit of work after that where you have to learn this different dance. So you’ve been dancing west coast swing for 20 years and now you’re with a healthy partner and you’re healthy, it’s more like the Cha Cha. And so you’ve got to learn the steps to that dance too.

So there’s a little bit of work after you meet your partner to sort of ease into this new routine and the normal rupture repair cycle, making sure that that doesn’t freak you out when you have an argument with your partner, things like that.

Jill: Oh I love that. So good. And such important work in the world, for sure.

Sade: Thank you.

Jill: Thank you so much for being here today, it’s been a delight as always.

Sade: Thank you, Jill.

Jill: Yeah, everybody go check out Sade. Follow her on Instagram, she’s got an amazing Instagram. Check out her sites and if you are divorced and looking to date, she’s your girl.

Hey, real quick before you go, if you enjoyed listening to this episode, you have got to check out Up And Running. It’s my 30-day online program that will teach you exactly how to start running, stick with it, and become the runner you have always wanted to be. Head on over to notyouraveragerunner.com/upandrunning to join. I would love to be a part of your journey.