The Stay or Go Podcast for Women Considering Divorce

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit <a href="https://stayorgo.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_7">stayorgo.substack.com</a><br/><br/><p>This is one of the most important—and most difficult—episodes I’ve ever recorded.</p><p>In it, I speak openly and directly about intimate partner violence, including heartbreaking local and national examples of the very real dangers women face when they decide to leave. This is not a conversation many of us were raised to have. I wasn’t. But after years of coaching women who are considering divorce, I know we cannot afford to keep looking away.</p><p>Together, we unpack critical statistics that are too often hidden behind passive headlines. I share a deeply personal story of a woman in my community whose life was taken after she left a partner—and how her death, and others like it, must wake us up to what is truly at stake.</p><p>I also walk you through warning signs, risk factors, and the psychological patterns that too many women have been taught to minimize. And most of all, I offer you something I wish every woman had: a third way. Not the false binary of stay and survive or leave and risk everything—but a path built on information, preparation, and connection.</p><p>This episode is about reclaiming our safety. About standing shoulder to shoulder in the face of rising misogyny and systemic silence. About refusing to shrink or isolate, and instead learning how to call out the realities we live in—with clarity, courage, and love.</p><p>If you’re not ready for this episode today, that’s okay. But I want you to know it’s here, whenever you are. And if you listen and this lands close to home, please know: you do not have to walk this alone.</p><p>Show Notes:</p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://stayorgo.substack.com/subscribe">Subscribe to Stay or Go on Substack</a></p><p>Text 90MIN to 33777 to book a 90-Minute Session with me. ✨</p><p>Text STAYORGOCOMMUNITY to 33777 to join the community. ⚡️</p><p>Text EMAILME to 33777 for the free tarot guide using ChatGPT. 💫</p><p><strong>National Domestic Violence Hotline (U.S.)</strong>24/7 free and confidential support</p><p>* <strong>Call:</strong> 800-799-SAFE (7233)</p><p>* <strong>Text:</strong> START to 88788</p><p>* <strong>Chat online:</strong><a target="_blank" href="https://www.thehotline.org/plan-for-safety/"> thehotline.org</a></p><p>They can help you build a personalized safety plan — whether you’re still in the relationship, planning to leave, or already out and still feeling unsafe.</p><p><strong>DomesticShelters.org – Safety Planning Guide</strong>A detailed, step-by-step guide to help you prepare in a way that fits your unique situation.<a target="_blank" href="https://www.domesticshelters.org/articles/comprehensive-guides/a-guide-to-domestic-violence-safety-planning?utm_source">https://www.domesticshelters.org/articles/comprehensive-guides/a-guide-to-domestic-violence-safety-planning?utm_source</a></p><p><strong>WomensLaw.org – Legal Safety Planning</strong>Includes emotional safety planning plus legal tips around custody, protection orders, and more.<a target="_blank" href="https://www.womenslaw.org/safety-planning?utm_source">https://www.womenslaw.org/safety-planning?utm_source</a></p><p><strong>Safe Horizon – Understanding What Goes Into a Safety Plan</strong>Learn what to prepare and how to communicate your plan to trusted people.<a target="_blank" href="https://www.safehorizon.org/safety-plan/?utm_source">https://www.safehorizon.org/safety-plan/?utm_source</a></p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.southdenvertherapy.com/blog/domestic-violence-statistics?utm_source=chatgpt.com">https://www.southdenvertherapy.com/blog/domestic-violence-statistics?utm_source=chatgpt.com</a></p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.domesticshelters.org/articles/statistics/when-abuse-turns-deadly?utm_source=chatgpt.com">https://www.domesticshelters.org/articles/statistics/when-abuse-turns-deadly?utm_source=chatgpt.com</a></p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/@BrittaJo_TheStayorGoCoach">YouTube Channel</a></p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://stayorgocoaching.com/the-deep-dive/">The Deep Dive - 3 Month One-on-One Coaching Intensive</a></p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://community.stayorgocoaching.com/landing?from=https%3A%2F%2Fcommunity.stayorgocoaching.com%2Flanding-page">Stay or Go Community</a></p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.instagram.com/consideringdivorce/">Instagram</a></p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.facebook.com/consideringdivorce">Facebook</a></p>

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit <a href="https://stayorgo.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_7">stayorgo.substack.com</a><br/><br/><p>In this second part of the series, I take you inside what has been one of the most tender, clarifying, and ultimately empowering chapters of my life: navigating an adult ADHD diagnosis, beginning medication, and reclaiming parts of myself I didn’t know I had lost.</p><p>We start with a kind of radical idea—what if knowing yourself deeply, even when it’s painful, is the path to peace? In a time when there’s growing pushback against diagnosis and therapy language, I share a different perspective. One rooted in lived experience. One that says language doesn’t confine us, it frees us. Naming what lives inside us doesn’t shrink our potential, it releases shame.</p><p>I talk openly about the emotional process of receiving an ADHD diagnosis and how it allowed me to trace patterns I had never been able to name—patterns that shaped my childhood, my relationship with my mother, my marriage, my nervous system. I share honestly about the grief that surfaced, the beliefs I had to examine, and why, at first, even with a prescription in hand, I couldn’t take the medication.</p><p>But then life intervened. A mental and emotional breaking point became the catalyst for finally saying yes to deeper support. I walk you through the realities of what that looked like: the side effects, the scheduling, the slow and steady shifts that began to change everything. This episode holds nothing back. I talk about what has improved and what I miss. What has steadied and what has softened.</p><p>And I name the truth that felt like a revelation—this diagnosis didn’t make me feel broken. It made me feel seen. It gave me a new story to tell about myself. One filled with compassion, understanding, and even awe.</p><p>I also share the ten “superpowers” I now see in myself—traits I once judged that I now hold with reverence. Empathy. Intuition. Creativity. Justice sensitivity. Risk-taking. Drive. These parts of me didn’t begin with the diagnosis, but they have deepened in how I understand and honor them.</p><p>This episode is for every woman who has ever feared that the real problem is her. Who has worried that even if she leaves, the same pain will follow. Who has wondered if she is just too much, too chaotic, too emotional, too different to be fully loved.</p><p>I want you to know: there is nothing wrong with you. There are just things you may not yet understand. And when you find the language, the support, and the people who see you as whole and valuable exactly as you are—everything can change.</p><p>Whether or not you have ADHD, whether or not you are considering medication, this conversation is about something much bigger. It is about returning to yourself with clarity, with curiosity, and with love. It is about finally naming the truth: that the answers were never out there. They have always been within you.</p><p>Show Notes:</p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://stayorgo.substack.com/subscribe">Subscribe to Stay or Go on Substack</a></p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://andreaandes.com/">Andrea Andes</a> - Therapist </p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.newharbinger.com/9781684032617/a-radical-guide-for-women-with-adhd/?srsltid=AfmBOopYk5KPc6WYQ7M3hGOfIBqlG8Rx3PjksewMCiJKedH7hQxITHbD"><em>A Radical Guide for Women with ADHD</em></a> - Sari Solden and Michelle Frank</p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://tracyotsuka.com/book2"><em>ADHD for Smart Ass Women</em></a> - Tracy Otsuka</p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://pete-walker.com/complex_ptsd_book.html"><em>Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving</em></a> - Pete Walker</p><p>Text 90MIN to 33777 to book a 90-Minute Session with me. ✨</p><p>Text STAYORGOCOMMUNITY to 33777 to join the community. ⚡️</p><p>Text EMAILME to 33777 for the free tarot guide using ChatGPT. 💫</p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/@BrittaJo_TheStayorGoCoach">YouTube Channel</a></p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://stayorgocoaching.com/the-deep-dive/">The Deep Dive - 3 Month One-on-One Coaching Intensive</a></p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://community.stayorgocoaching.com/landing?from=https%3A%2F%2Fcommunity.stayorgocoaching.com%2Flanding-page">Stay or Go Community</a></p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.instagram.com/consideringdivorce/">Instagram</a></p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.facebook.com/consideringdivorce">Facebook</a></p>

<p>Welcome to 2026, my loves. I’m starting this year with one of the most personal and tender episodes I’ve ever shared. In Part One of this two-part series, I’m opening the door to my recent ADHD diagnosis—how it reframed not just the last few years, but the landscape of my entire life.</p><p>This isn’t just an episode about ADHD. It’s about the slow unraveling of shame. About finally understanding why therapy, coaching, somatic work—even with all the growth they gave me—could never quite reach the black box of suffering I carried. It’s about the enormous relief that comes when you realize: the problem was never that you weren’t trying hard enough. The problem was that no one ever gave you the right map.</p><p>I walk through the traits of adult ADHD that have shifted how I parent, how I relate, and how I see the intense emotional terrain I’ve spent a lifetime navigating. We’ll talk about rejection-sensitive dysphoria, overstimulation, emotional dysregulation, and the unseen labor of masking that so many women carry silently. I share how medication has begun to create space where there was none—allowing me to show up in my life with more steadiness, more self-compassion, and far less self-judgment.</p><p>Whether ADHD is something you’ve long suspected in yourself or something that’s never crossed your mind, I encourage you to listen. Especially if you’re a woman navigating huge decisions like divorce. Undiagnosed ADHD can shape our self-worth, our relationships, and our emotional bandwidth in ways we don’t always see. And when we don’t know it’s there, we so often internalize the pain as personal failure.</p><p>But you’re not failing. You’re just finally being seen.</p><p>This episode is my offering to anyone who’s ever looked around at their life and thought, “Why is this so hard?” May it give you language, permission, and a starting point for something softer, truer, and more whole.</p><p>So take a breath. Let’s begin this year not with resolutions, but with revelation.</p><p>Show Notes:</p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://stayorgo.substack.com/subscribe">Subscribe to Stay or Go on Substack</a></p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10173330/"><em>Miss. Diagnosis: A Systematic Review of ADHD in Adult Women</em></a> - Emma A. Climie</p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/311-10-things-i-wish-everyone-knew-about-adhd/id1446874607?i=1000703575291"><em>10 Things I Wish Everyone Knew About ADHD</em></a> - I Have ADHD Podcast</p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.newharbinger.com/9781684032617/a-radical-guide-for-women-with-adhd/?srsltid=AfmBOopYk5KPc6WYQ7M3hGOfIBqlG8Rx3PjksewMCiJKedH7hQxITHbD"><em>A Radical Guide for Women with ADHD</em></a> - Sari Solden and Michelle Frank</p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://tracyotsuka.com/book2"><em>ADHD for Smart Ass Women</em></a> - Tracy Otsuka</p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://pete-walker.com/complex_ptsd_book.html"><em>Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving</em></a> - Pete Walker</p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://brenebrown.com/book/strong-ground/"><em>Strong Ground</em></a> - Brené Brown</p><p>Text 90MIN to 33777 to book a 90-Minute Session with me. ✨</p><p>Text STAYORGOCOMMUNITY to 33777 to join the community. ⚡️</p><p>Text EMAILME to 33777 for the free tarot guide using ChatGPT. 💫</p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/@BrittaJo_TheStayorGoCoach">YouTube Channel</a></p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://stayorgocoaching.com/the-deep-dive/">The Deep Dive - 3 Month One-on-One Coaching Intensive</a></p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://community.stayorgocoaching.com/landing?from=https%3A%2F%2Fcommunity.stayorgocoaching.com%2Flanding-page">Stay or Go Community</a></p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.instagram.com/consideringdivorce/">Instagram</a></p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.facebook.com/consideringdivorce">Facebook</a></p> <br/><br/>This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://stayorgo.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_2">stayorgo.substack.com/subscribe</a>

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit <a href="https://stayorgo.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_7">stayorgo.substack.com</a><br/><br/><p>Two days before Christmas can feel especially heavy when you are quietly considering divorce. The holidays have a way of magnifying everything: the grief, the pressure to perform, the old family dynamics, and the fear of being asked questions you are not ready to answer.</p><p>In this episode, I pull you in close with warmth and honesty. I share a story I had forgotten until I found it in my journals: a Christmas with my in-laws when something deeply personal about my faith journey was shared before I was ready. What followed was a long, well intentioned but deeply dysregulating family conversation that left me feeling exposed, overwhelmed, and pushed into the familiar role so many of us know well: explaining, caretaking, and managing everyone else’s emotions.</p><p>That experience brings us to the core message of this episode: you do not owe anyone answers.</p><p>Not about your marriage. Not about your timeline. Not about the parts of you that are still tender and unfolding. It is not your job to make your life make sense to other people, especially during the holidays when old patterns of people pleasing and codependency are at their loudest.</p><p>We talk about how these patterns tend to show up this time of year: staying with family even when it makes you feel trapped, overcommitting to keep the peace, avoiding alone time, overexplaining, staying quiet to avoid conflict, and prioritizing everyone else’s comfort while your own nervous system is stretched thin.</p><p>I offer language you can use when conversations turn invasive, along with permission to let others feel uncomfortable without rushing to fix it. We also spend time on nervous system support and practical ways to protect your peace, from creating small pockets of solitude to rethinking logistics like where you stay, how you travel, and how long you remain at gatherings.</p><p>Most of all, this episode is a reminder that you matter during the holidays. Your peace matters. You are allowed to choose yourself, even imperfectly, even quietly, even when it disappoints others. You do not have to explain your way into being understood. You are allowed to protect what is sacred while you are still becoming.</p><p>Show Notes:</p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://stayorgo.substack.com/subscribe">Subscribe to Stay or Go on Substack</a></p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.sarahblondin.com/podcast">The Live Awake Podcast</a> - Sarah Blondin</p><p>Text 90MIN to 33777 to book a 90-Minute Session with me. ✨</p><p>Text STAYORGOCOMMUNITY to 33777 to join the community. ⚡️</p><p>Text EMAILME to 33777 for the free tarot guide using ChatGPT. 💫</p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/@BrittaJo_TheStayorGoCoach">YouTube Channel</a></p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://stayorgocoaching.com/the-deep-dive/">The Deep Dive - 3 Month One-on-One Coaching Intensive</a></p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://community.stayorgocoaching.com/landing?from=https%3A%2F%2Fcommunity.stayorgocoaching.com%2Flanding-page">Stay or Go Community</a></p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.instagram.com/consideringdivorce/">Instagram</a></p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.facebook.com/consideringdivorce">Facebook</a></p>

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit <a href="https://stayorgo.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_7">stayorgo.substack.com</a><br/><br/><p>In this conversation with my dear friend Quinn, we finally do what I wish someone had done for me all those years ago. We open the black box of divorce and lay the process out in a way that is human, honest, and actually useful. Not theory, not legal jargon, but the lived reality of two women who walked very different paths through the same fire.</p><p>Quinn’s journey into divorce was long and chronic, shaped by decades of Mormon conditioning and a lifetime of being told not to trust herself. Mine was sharper and more sudden, driven by depression, suicidal ideation, and the painful awakening that I wasn’t broken, the systems around me were. Together we unravel how religious, cultural, and patriarchal messaging keeps women trapped in self‑blame and confusion long past the point where something in their soul knows the truth.</p><p>From there we walk step‑by‑step through the process itself. Trial separations, the moment you know, the strategy required before you tell him, the emotional whiplash of filing, and in my case, the shock of living under the same roof <em>after</em> the divorce was underway. We talk temporary orders, discovery, mediation, attorneys who fight for you, and the strange mix of grief and relief that comes as the legal structure finally begins to take shape.</p><p>And then Quinn offers what most people never get to hear. What happens <strong>after</strong> the decree is signed. What happens when an ex refuses to follow orders. What happens when you need legal protection. What it is like to work with the courts, child protective services, school counselors, and low‑cost legal aid. What it looks like to slowly build a self so solid that you no longer bend to chaos but meet it with clarity and consequence.</p><p>This episode is not about telling you whether to stay or go. It is about turning on the lights so you can stop imagining monsters and start seeing the terrain for what it truly is. If divorce has felt like a void you are terrified to step into, I want this conversation to feel like a hand on your back saying, You can do this. You can learn. You can prepare. You can choose the life that calls to you.</p><p>Your life, your story, and your safety matter. And you do not have to walk this part alone.</p><p>Show Notes:</p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://stayorgo.substack.com/subscribe">Subscribe to Stay or Go on Substack</a></p><p>Text 90MIN to 33777 to book a 90-Minute Session with me. ✨</p><p>Text STAYORGOCOMMUNITY to 33777 to join the community. ⚡️</p><p>Text EMAILME to 33777 for the free tarot guide using ChatGPT. 💫</p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/@BrittaJo_TheStayorGoCoach">YouTube Channel</a></p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://stayorgocoaching.com/the-deep-dive/">The Deep Dive - 3 Month One-on-One Coaching Intensive</a></p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://community.stayorgocoaching.com/landing?from=https%3A%2F%2Fcommunity.stayorgocoaching.com%2Flanding-page">Stay or Go Community</a></p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.instagram.com/consideringdivorce/">Instagram</a></p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://www.facebook.com/consideringdivorce">Facebook</a></p>