A Fresh Story

Sometimes the most useful divorce recovery tools aren’t complicated—they’re the small, tangible things that help you feel more like yourself when everything else feels uncertain. In this episode of A Fresh Story: Simple Tips to Support Yourself, Olivia Howell talks with Tracy D. Galloway, Esq., M.A., a Massachusetts divorce attorney, litigator, online divorce coach and educator, and creator of Divorce Bootcamp. Drawing from both her professional experience and her own life, Tracy shares three surprisingly simple strategies for supporting your emotional resilience through divorce, single parenting, stressful transitions, and other seasons when you need help feeling grounded. Tracy’s tips begin with something as ordinary as getting dressed. She explains why putting on a favorite blazer—or any piece of clothing that helps you feel strong, held, and capable—can change how you approach a difficult phone call, meeting, or conversation. Her second tool is a funny coffee mug, which serves as a daily reminder that humor matters, bad days are allowed, and self-forgiveness is part of taking care of yourself. Finally, Tracy talks about investing in physical comfort, from the right pillow to the objects that make home feel safe and restorative. Together, these simple practices offer accessible self-care during divorce without pretending that a hard season can be solved with a perfect morning routine. The episode also explores one of Tracy’s most important mindset shifts for anyone starting over after divorce: feelings are not facts, and thoughts are not decisions. You are allowed to imagine another life without immediately acting on it. You are allowed to consider possibilities, think beyond your current circumstances, and ask what a different future could look like. For listeners navigating divorce recovery, single parenting, emotional overwhelm, or a major fresh start, Tracy offers practical encouragement for supporting yourself today while slowly making room for what might be possible tomorrow. 🔗 Check out Fresh Starts Registry: The first & only divorce registry + support platform ➡ https://www.freshstartsregistry.com/ 📱 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/freshstartsregistry/ 📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FreshStartsRegistry 🎙 Podcast IG: https://www.instagram.com/divorcehappenspod/ 📬 Magazine: https://divorceguidemagazine.com/ 💛 The Divorce Happens Community: https://divorcehappens.substack.com/

There is a particular kind of loneliness that can come with becoming a mother: the moment you realize everyone warned you that you would be tired, but almost nobody warned you that you might lose pieces of yourself. Creator and author Emily Feret built her platform by saying the things mothers are often afraid to say out loud—the house is messy, the baby won’t stop crying, your body feels unfamiliar, your marriage has changed, you miss who you used to be, and sometimes motherhood is simply really, really hard. In this episode of A Fresh Story: Book Talk, Emily joins Olivia to talk about the book that grew out of that radical honesty, Normalizing Normal: Motherhood Without the Filter. Covering the terrain from pregnancy through the early years of parenting, Normalizing Normal is less a traditional parenting manual than the big sister Emily wishes someone had handed her before she became a mom. She writes about postpartum life, identity, guilt, changing bodies, relationships, friendship, overwhelm, and the strange emotional duality of loving your children fiercely while sometimes not particularly enjoying motherhood. Emily and Olivia talk about the advice mothers are given—“sleep when the baby sleeps,” “don’t blink,” “enjoy every moment”—and all the things hidden underneath those phrases. What happens when you can’t enjoy every moment? What if the baby screams in the car for eight months? What if becoming a mother changes your marriage, your friendships, your relationship with your body, and the way you recognize yourself? And why are mothers so often expected to qualify every difficult truth with an immediate reminder that they are grateful? For Emily, writing this book was also the fulfillment of a deeply personal dream. Becoming an author had lived on what she calls her “deathbed list”—the things she knew she would regret never attempting—and, fittingly, the opportunity eventually arrived through an Instagram DM she initially thought was a scam. But the heart of the book is much bigger than accomplishing a dream. It is about removing shame through recognition: the relief of discovering that another mother has thought the thought you were afraid to say, struggled with the thing you thought everyone else could handle, or needed to find herself again after becoming responsible for everyone else. Normalizing Normal makes room for two truths at once: motherhood can be beautiful, and motherhood can be extraordinarily hard. If you are becoming a parent, deep in the early years, emerging from them, or simply trying to find yourself again after life changed you, this conversation is a reminder that honesty can be its own kind of village.

Picture a twenty-something widow in Paris, a sick one-year-old on her hip, and an attic full of paintings nobody wants—not galleries, not critics, not even her own family. That widow was Jo van Gogh, and the paintings belonged to her late husband's brother, a mostly forgotten failure named Vincent. What she did next didn't just save a legacy. It invented one. Bestselling author Jo Piazza tells her story in The Parisian Heist, and by the end of this episode, you may never look at a Van Gogh—or a woman rebuilding her life from nothing—the same way again. The Parisian Heist moves between two timelines that mirror each other in surprising ways. In the past, we watch Jo van Gogh turn grief and financial desperation into a masterclass in reinvention—she becomes an art dealer, manipulates the market, and manufactures the myth of the "tortured genius" we still associate with Vincent today. In a second timeline set in 1996, three broke art students get pulled into a heist against a corrupt, billionaire art-dealing family, guided by a widow with her own scores to settle. Piazza calls it a "delicious beach read," but underneath the spice—and yes, there's a very spicy memorable scene in the Louvre — sit real questions about who gets to be called an artist, who gets the credit, and what a woman is capable of when she has nothing left to lose. Piazza didn't just research Jo van Gogh's story — she recognized it. As a journalist-turned-novelist raising three kids, she's candid about the balls she drops daily, the deadlines she meets with help from what she calls "an army of babysitters," and a marriage where, in her words, she "married her glass ceiling." That honesty is exactly why this book lands the way it does: it isn't really about Impressionist art. It's about what a woman builds when the life she expected falls apart, and about the quiet, radical decision to keep going anyway. For anyone standing in their own version of that attic — starting over after loss, after motherhood rearranges everything, after the version of life they planned stops making sense — Jo van Gogh's story, and Jo Piazza's telling of it, is proof that reinvention isn't just possible. It's often where the real story begins. Go pick up a copy of The Parisian Heist by Jo Piazza HERE!

In this episode of A Fresh Story: Simple Tips to Support Yourself, Olivia Howell sits down with Rachel Lovitt, a holistic movement coach and Reiki practitioner who helps people reconnect with their bodies, rediscover childlike curiosity, and feel like themselves again. Rachel’s specialty is making self-care radically simple — a refreshing counter to the wellness “noise” around biohacking, optimization, and rigid routines that can leave you feeling like you’re already failing. For anyone navigating overwhelm, caregiving demands, or a major life transition, this conversation is a practical guide to building emotional resilience through small, sustainable actions rather than all-or-nothing effort. Throughout the episode, Rachel reframes rest and slowing down not as indulgence but as a foundation for endurance — pausing now is what allows you to keep going through big life transitions later. Her approach is especially supportive for busy parents, caregivers in the “sandwich generation,” and anyone rebuilding routines after a season of change, offering ways to quiet self-judgment and tune out the pressure to perform wellness “correctly.” If you’ve been craving a more compassionate, genuinely doable approach to your mental and physical well-being, this Simple Tips to Support Yourself episode delivers expert-backed, actionable guidance for caring for yourself one small, joyful step at a time.

In this episode of A Fresh Story: Simple Tips to Support Yourself, host Olivia Howell sits down with Ron Platt, co-founder of the National Association for Single and Divorced Families (NASDF) — the only national organization built to surround divorcing parents and single-family households with practical products, services, and support in one place. Ron brings a rare combination of insider expertise and lived experience: a background in insurance product development, hands-on advocacy work in foster care, and his own journey through a difficult relationship and financial hardship. Listeners looking for grounded divorce recovery tips will come away understanding how to stop piecing together help from a dozen scattered sources and instead build a real support system as they navigate starting over after divorce. The conversation turns quickly to actionable strategies. Ron breaks down the concrete resources families can tap during a transition: vetted referrals for attorneys, mediators, divorce coaches, and financial planners; free and discounted mental health care sessions; real estate support that can offset closing costs by thousands of dollars; and career services designed to help at-home parents re-enter the workforce and close resume gaps with confidence. He also explains Support Insured, a first-of-its-kind insurance product that guarantees child support and alimony payments continue if the paying parent dies, becomes disabled, or involuntarily loses their job — a safety net that speaks directly to the financial anxiety at the heart of single parenting advice and effective co-parenting strategies. Beyond the logistics, Ron offers honest, expert-backed guidance on emotional resilience during life's hardest seasons. Drawing on his own experience working with a coach through crisis, he shares simple daily practices anyone can start today: journaling your thoughts, writing down goals and reviewing them regularly, clarifying your “why,” and anchoring each morning with movement, affirmations, and gratitude. His core message — “get comfortable being uncomfortable” — reframes discomfort as the doorway to growth. Whether you're newly separated, deep in co-parenting logistics, or simply feeling wobbly, this episode delivers clear, supportive tools to help you move forward with clarity and strength.