Nicole:

Hey friends. So we’ve had a couple of chats the past couple of weeks, and they’ve been maybe a little bit more fun, a little more lighthearted. We’ve had the Misterfella pop in here. And we’ve talked about gosh, loving your adoptive kids and, you know, building businesses that we love that are true to ourselves but I want to kind of get back to one of our really real chats.

And this one is really driven by the conversations we’ve had in the DMs and the conversations we have in the comments. If you follow me on Instagram at Nicole Walters, you know, my DMs are open, and I do my best to get back to everyone. And the thing that I get a lot and that I’ve heard a lot ever since I announced and shared, you know, gosh, many years ago that I’m going through the divorce process was that several of you were considering it, thinking about it, have gone through it, have already filed, or we’re in the process real time with me.

And you know, that led to some very interesting conversations, you know, about mostly the emotional stuff, because everyone’s situation is always different, but mostly around like how it feels and sort of, do I do this? Do I not? And you know, I never tried to say that I’m a therapist, or that I’ve answered and you all know how much I love therapy and prayer and using your resources but what I wanted to address today is more vulnerable. I want to go back to sort of before the divorce formalization process, just kind of where I was in that what is happening stage, you know, and am I really getting divorce and the biggest thing that I was afraid of, that was making me dragged my feet when it came into stepping into what I knew I needed and wanted.

And I think a lot of you can maybe realize this, you know, or relate to it, where you know that there’s something better on the other side, you know that you need a fresh start, you know, you need to start over, whether it’s in a career, in your marriage, in a friendship, you know that you need a fresh start. And what’s scary is thinking of everything you’re going to leave behind or worse, if it doesn’t work out, everything you’ve lost.

I can feel myself getting choked up. And the reason why is because loss is difficult no matter what. That is the grief part of divorce that I think not too many people understand. And the reason they don’t understand it is because divorce feels, and I think our society paints it as being a selfish or self-centered driven thing, because here you are part of a union and then sharing that you desire to no longer be a part of it.

And usually the reason is because you need something different or something occurred that wasn’t in alignment with what you wanted. And boy is that so different from the partnership concept that is what marriage is supposed to be.

But I have to say, and I’ve said this, you know before, maybe not in our conversation, but maybe with friends, but I want you to hear it too. There is no one on this planet that gets divorced because they want to. Because you wouldn’t have just gotten wouldn’t have gotten married to begin with, right? And there’s no one that goes through a divorce and leaves things behind for less. Or at least, you know, maybe in a material sense less, you know, if it isn’t worth leaving behind.

And I think that is the part that is very sobering and it’s something that really opens up my heart to women, you know, and men, you know, but anyone going through this process, knowing that if you’re willing to like pack up a couple suitcases and go there must be a really good reason why. Because nobody would do that unless they felt that the things in front of them outweighed what was behind them. And that’s what I wanted to talk about because it takes a while to get there.

I can’t tell you, everyone I’ve talked to or anyone who’s spoken to me that is considering divorce or in a difficult difficult spot often says but you know, I’d be broke or I won’t have anything or what if I’m not able to see my children or what about my home or I mean I’ve and I won’t even pretend like it’s other people I’ll say myself, you know, I was like, “What about my you know, airfryer? What about my garden? What about, you know, my this? My closet that I love?” Or I have a person that was in my life as a client who you know is like I just redid my kitchen. You know, I put all this money and effort, I love my kitchens, my dream kitchen, I can’t leave, you know, I can’t move on to the next thing. And when we’re not ready, we’ll find a million reasons why we have to stay. And in my book, you know, Nothing is Missing, which, you know, I’m grateful because I know how transformative this will literally take you into some of these conversations, this book will be that fresh start manual that will let you know there isn’t any fresh start from starting a new business to battling stage four cancer that you can’t take on, if you approach it the right way.

In this book, I talk about having to let go of what I wanted things to be and right down to surrendering material things in order to step into what I knew I needed and deserved. And that’s what I wanted to dive into here in a more personal way and you know how I am some things are Betterment for conversations, and they are for captions. And what I’m talking about is the idea that sometimes you have to leave it all behind, in order to actually receive what is yours, and what you deserve. And I take this back to gardening. So if you follow me on Instagram, and you kind of kept up with me during the pandemic and the years prior, you know that I am a farmer girl. I love to grow fruits and veggies. Now I can’t keep a plant alive to save my life. Make no mistake, if you come to my house, it is a series of plastic plants because I cannot keep them alive. There is something very rewarding to me about knowing that what I’m growing is going to feed me that gets a different level of commitment from me.

But that said, because I love to get into the garden and grow everything from tomatoes to sweet potatoes to corn and watermelon and cantaloupes. I mean, I’ve shared that journey. Honestly, if you go on Instagram, I have an entire highlight dedicated if you want to keep up with my gardens of the past, but, you know, it just gives me so much joy to get out and work in the soil. And gardening is such a metaphor for so many things about our life, you know, being patient and putting things under the soil and hoping and praying that you did all the right work, but that God’s gonna throw in that sprinkling of you know, luck and blessings so you’ll get the results. And being patient, waiting to harvest and knowing things can go wrong. Like there’s just so many things that I know, my motivational brain takes away from the act of gardening.

But I’ve looked at it in a different way, particularly since we’ve been in California and not having a garden for a little while because frankly, while going through divorce, I just didn’t have the energy to get up and to be responsible for growing anything but myself. And one of the things that happens when you’re gardening, I think that really stands out and is similar to if you’re in a job that isn’t fulfilling, or if you are in a friendship that doesn’t feel meaningful. Or if you’re in a marriage, you know, that isn’t fruitful, is that when you’re starting a garden, and you notice that you have an infestation. And this is the hardest part of being a gardener. You get to a point where you’ve planted things and you’re kind of waiting for the fruit to really burst. And each thing kind of takes its own time. And you know, if you did everything right, and there’s enough sun and everything’s been put just so, kind of like building a family or building a business you’ve spent so long you’re kind of waiting towards that big career point or that big, you know, marriage point, we’re gonna have the kid or move to the house or whatever, you’re striving to really hope that you’ll harvest the fruits of years of work.

So it’s the same thing that happens in your garden, you’re like waiting to really see that big bounty come because once the bounty comes, you know, just like any place in your life, if you did that hard work, you really can’t keep your garden from giving you fruit, it almost like gets this point where you can’t pick it fast enough, you know, and it’s hardier and it’s stronger because it’s used to producing so it just keeps coming and that is like I think the goal of most of us in our life, we want to get to a place where all of our hard work continues to pay us back because we did the hard work and now we just get to enjoy the fruits of our labor.

So you know in a garden it works the same way but it’s also during that delicate season when you’re watching your garden, waiting for the fruit, that if infestation gets in and that can be through mold or fungus or pests, you know bugs ants, you know any type of disease. Not only will it affect a single plant that you have spent so much time nurturing because usually it starts in one area, but it will affect your entire garden and much like any relationship in your life there are things you can do you know in advance to try to protect your world from being infested with anything. But ultimately if one thing gets in there and you miss it because you aren’t constantly keeping eyes on it, it will grow and it will spread and it will affect all areas.

And the solution to that, much like a marriage or relationship or a business, typically, and you’ll hear me say this as a consultant is, you know, go through and try to manage the problem, cut out what doesn’t work, make changes in your garden, try new products, put in extra effort, pay attention night and day, maybe isolate. If it gets really, really bad, pull out that singular weed, you know, get that thing out. So that that way it doesn’t spread, you know, I mean, there are things you can do to try to treat and treat and treat to minimize the impact and hopefully save most of it and just benefit some fruit, get some fruit, because if you can get some fruit, you actually will make it to the point where you probably will still have a pretty bountiful, you know, harvest season.

So if you’re stay with me here, if you’re still if you’re still understanding the metaphor, but it is interesting, because in life, you know how many of us spend years in that space, in our marriage, or in our business, it’s, oh, maybe if I apply for a different job, or maybe if we see one more counselor, or maybe if we, you know, move houses or have another baby, or you know, this changes in our finances or whatever. If I just make this tweak, it’ll treat these various areas, and then eventually, we’ll make it to harvest season. But I have to tell you, there’s another thing that farmers never talk about.

And there’s another thing that is absolutely a technique, you know, that will make sure that you get a bounty, but it’s so wildly unpleasant. And actually, the brain has a hard time processing it, that we don’t talk about it enough but sometimes it’s the only solution. And in gardening, if for some reason your infestation is too widespread, if you have done everything you can to kind of isolate a tree to keep it to one area, but it has taken over all aspects of your life, your garden, everywhere else, the only solution to make sure you will grow again, is to tear the whole thing down. You have to pull up the entire garden, you need to pull things up by their roots, you have to turn over the soil, you have to treat the entire area, there can be nothing left. And you have to do all of this to get it back to where it needs to be. And then get this, you can’t even plant right away. The soil actually has to sit there and lay. And you’ll look at it and you’ll say oh my god, this is an abandoned piece of land. You know, this is soil that hasn’t been used, it’s overgrown, it could be fruitful, but what’s happening and it looks like nothing’s going on. But it’s actually restoring itself. It is getting its nutrients back, it is preparing itself for the future. And it’s healing. 

And all of this, if you plant too soon, if you rush to put back on the soil, because you think it looks right again, your crop will fail. Because there aren’t enough nutrients in the soil, it’s not fully healed. But if you wait just the right amount of time, you will have a better garden than you did the first time, because there’s nothing left there to infect the soil again. So I say all of this to say that so often we look at people who’ve gone through breakups, or challenges, or job transitions or motherhood difficulties. And it’s so easy to look at their loss, or to look at the changes and say, oh my god, it looks so different than the way it was before.

And I say this, not just from what we’ve seen, but also what you may be going through friend, you may be feeling like I cannot believe that it looks nothing like it did before. I cannot believe that my new world just does not feel like it has the bounty that it used to. I look like a barren field without any fruit. But if you’re just in a season where your soil is gathering nutrients, you are actually preparing yourself for the greatest harvest. And it’s hard to believe but what you’re doing is the only way to assure that you will flourish.

So one, as individuals, I always want to encourage us to grant people grace, and also encourage them and you know, nurture them because even a barren field still needs water and it still needs nutrients and it still needs to be treated. It still needs good sun and all of that. But you know it’s not ready to give fruit just yet. You know, but it doesn’t mean it’s no good. And I encourage all of you that when you see people who are in these transition seasons to give them so much love because soon they will harvest and you want to be there to taste the fruit too but also because they deserve it. Nothing’s wrong. It’s just different. Nothing’s missing. It’s just different.

And then if you’re in this place yourself, I just want you to give yourself grace, to recognize that it’s appropriate, if not a natural and necessary order of events sometimes where if it is just too crazy, you gotta quit the job. If it is just too crazy, you have to move on from the marriage. If the sickness and the mindset and the abuse or the you know, whatever is just too deep, it’s a drastic overhaul in order to start anew, because you still deserve to taste the fruit. And the sooner you do it, the quicker you get to, you know, replanting season and to get to pick the goodness.

So it’s not easy, I think, some days for me to wake up, you know, in California, you know, with a different husband, and, you know, my babies are all grown, it feels like life happens so fast. Like, I mean, literally, it’s like whiplash. And I feel this in particular, when some of you, thanks to the algorithm, come back around, and you’re like, wait a minute, I feel like I haven’t seen your posts in a while and there is a new man, the little one who’s 11 looks 15. You know, I remember when she had no teeth, you know, and Nicole is in California, and like, what is happening, you know, and if you think it’s whiplash for you, you can only imagine what it’s like for me. 

And I can tell you that it looks different, but it’s so good. Like, it’s so good. Because everything I’m doing now is forward moving. I felt like in the past, like I was dying, playing cleanup, and trying to treat every corner and trying to preserve and, you know, from the outside, and if you didn’t look close, you know, you didn’t see the infestation, you didn’t see the bugs, it doesn’t mean they weren’t there. And it doesn’t mean I was trying to hide them. You know, because my garden was, there were parts of it that were flourishing, and it was bright and green, and it was fighting, it was fighting. But when I tell you, the idea that I know that I have a healthy garden that I can even step away from, you know, for a couple of days, and it’ll still be just as good when I come back. And that without a doubt, I’m gonna have a harvest season that will keep producing and I’ll never have to tear up my soil again, because I built it on a place that is solid. It’s like, it’s worth it. And I don’t care if my gardens are in California now and I can only grow certain crops, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s different. But gosh, it’s so good.

And I just want to encourage all of you to know that we don’t need to be afraid of different and you know, I talk about that in my book that the quote that I always say, and you’ve probably heard me say it before here, read it on Instagram, but everything is wrong, you know about my life right now, everything about it. When I look at it, it’s so wrong, because it isn’t according to anything I’ve planned. And it’s so wrong, because it doesn’t follow any of the checkmarks, I am not supposed to be a divorcee. Whenever I look at the box that I’m supposed to check, married, single divorce, I should never be checking divorced, right? Like, that’s not something I ever accounted for for my life.

I should not have a child across the country in college and one, you know, down the street in sober living and another one, you know, in my home in sixth grade, like what is even. Well, I mean, I’m glad she’s there. But you know what I mean? I just like she’s all grown up, like, I should not be on my second marriage. You know, I should not be in Los Angeles, like, what am I even doing here? You know, like this. If I had a bingo card, none of these things were on them, you know, and yet here I am. And everything is totally and completely wrong. But everything is so right. My god, I’m so grateful that I serve a God that gives me what I deserve and not what I want. Because if I got what I asked for, I absolutely would have been getting less than I deserved because I got what I asked for frankly, I had everything, you know, according to the book, and it was not what I deserved and it was not what I needed.

And it definitely wasn’t what I wanted, ultimately, and I just didn’t even know what to ask for. And the life that I’m in now holy cow, like it’s not fancy. Although, honestly, my life is more expensive now than it was back East. Because I’m California but it’s a simple love. It has ease. It has grace. I was telling my therapist this morning, that my home is one where I can feel God’s covering in the walls. And it’s one that when people walk in they’re like this place is peaceful. All, you know, not peaceful, like, it’s not loud, like, we’re a fun, you know, game filled, silly bunch, but it’s just peaceful, you feel at home that you feel comfortable.

And I never felt that before. I’m not gonna lie, like I loved my babies and my home was beautiful, but it wasn’t peaceful, it was anxious, it was filled with stress, it was, you know, it just didn’t have the level of joy consistently that it needed to. It just required too much effort. And I have to say that, with everything being wrong, I’m shocked that everything is right. But one thing that is true is that nothing is missing, that all my needs have always been met throughout this process. And I say that out loud to you, friend. If you are in a place of transition, career, motherhood, marriage, you won’t lack anything. And I’m just letting that hang there for a minute. Because I know that that is ultimately some of the deepest fear around transition and change. What if I lose? You’re not going to lack anything, partly because of who you are.

If you look back, you know, history leaves clues, you might have been through a lot, but you’re still here. And you’re here because you haven’t lacked. And even if it’s been difficult, or you’ve had less, you somehow have always had enough. And above all else, the thing that I always tell people who are in transition, if you are a hard worker, if you are willing to show up, if you are a person who loves your babies, and will fight to the death for them. None of that is ever on the negotiation table. None of that is ever something that anyone can take from you.

If you have the ability to show up and do the work and do it consistently, you will always be okay. And the anxiety and fear and control that anyone tries to put into your world, because they lack those things, is not your truth, you do not have to absorb someone else’s scarcity. You know how to do it, you know how to make it happen, frankly, for a lot of us women who and men, you know, who are experiencing divorce or transition from the workforce or you know, change in friendships or motherhood. A lot of times the reason why we are making these changes, because we’re just tired.

We’re tired of doing all the work, of doing all the effort of being the point person, it’s not even like we’re leaving, because we want to go to some beautiful existence where, you know, we’re living this amazing life and all that, like, you know, I look at my life now. And I’m like, I’m just lucky that I fell into that. But I was just tired. I was tired. I needed a nap. And I was tired. And I was sick. And I was ill and I talked about that more in the book, you know about where I was my mental state, my physical state, you know, and having doctors look me in the face and say, if you continue to do what you’re doing, and you remain where you are, you will die, you know, and trying to get support around that and then having to make transition.

So I will say to you that friend, if that’s where you are right now, you know, you’re tired, because you did work. You’re not tired, because you did wrong. And if you did work, you know how to do it again, particularly after you have time to let your field lay, and nurture and heal. And if you can take a couple of things off your plate. So you have that space and that breathing room, you’ll be just fine.

So, you know, we don’t always have chats like this. But the truth is, and I’m learning more than ever before, as I get older, that saying that we hear from our like aunties and our grandmas when we’re younger, which is everyone’s going through something, I know that this chat is going to meet you where you are today. That whatever the thing is that is in front of you that you are saying to yourself, there is a change or there’s something more that I know I need to reach for there is a place that I’m in where I know I have to make some shifts, whether I’m too comfortable, and I know I need to make moves so I can grow or I’m uncomfortable and I need to make changes so I can sustain. I’m telling you right now you are capable of doing them, that you should not be afraid of a fresh start. Because everything you need, you have nothing is missing friend.

So I’m grateful because from day one, you’ve been watching me go through my season where I’ve had to lay a little bit unplanted. But you also watch me replant and you’re seeing me harvest now and I’m grateful and I know that you can do it too. So friend, let’s get to work.