003. When Life Breaks You Open

To see divorce through the eyes of your children in a way that affects them when it shouldn't—that'll break you as a mama. That'll break you. And it almost did.

Till I realized what was trying to break me was truly shaping me in every single way.

This episode is about the seasons that break us—and how they actually shape us. For me, that season was divorce. Three little ones depending on me to be strong while my entire world was shattering. Losing my identity. Picking up the pieces. And realizing years later that what felt like the end was actually the beginning of who I'd become.

In this episode:

• The moment my youngest came home from the neighbor's house and I realized how divorce had changed how others saw my children
• Why losing your identity in divorce is about more than just losing a partner—it's losing who you thought you were
• How the hardest season of my life taught me survival—and became the tool I'd use 20 years later when diagnosed with lupus
• What it means to turn something messy into something powerful
• Why bad things happen to good people—and why it's okay to hurt
• The difference between breaking and shaping, and how you get to choose which one happens

1:06 – Divorce Shattered My Identity
2:39 – Lonely Nights and Shame
3:09 – The Neighborhood Rejection Moment
4:00 – Broken Pieces Shape You
5:24 – Fueling Future Strength
6:43 – Message From the Mess
8:42 – Lupus Diagnosis and Fear
9:39 – Thriving: The Survival Engine
10:55 – Learning Limits and Discipline
12:36 – Stop Comparing Your Pain
13:45 – Breathe, Give Yourself Grace
14:59 – The Becoming Question

Connect: @melissathompson.19

Watch/Listen: bellame.com/becomingher

You are not late. 

You are not behind. 

You are not finished. 

You are in the making.

Stay in the making.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

To see divorce through the eyes of your children in a way that affects them when it shouldn't, that'll break you as a mama. That'll break you. And it almost did. It almost did. Till I realized what was trying to break me truly was shaping me in every single way. Welcome to Becoming Her. I'm Melissa Thompson. This is a podcast about lifelong evolution. For the woman who knows she's not finished, not behind, not late, just in the making. And that's exactly where you're supposed to be. Welcome back to becoming her. Today we're gonna dive a little deeper into seasons that can break you, but instead they actually shape you. And for me, that moment, it could be a series of moments. We all go through heartbreak and heartaches of different situations that almost break us. But if I really think back to the one thing that took my breath away,

– Divorce Shattered My Identity

SPEAKER_00 1:06

it was the season of divorce. It was having three little ones that depended on me to be strong. And when I felt like my entire world was shattering, what I realized now, it really was something shaping me behind the scenes. You know, because divorce itself, it really is that extension of marriage, unfortunately, and marriage bringing people together. You find your identity in somebody else. And sometimes that's a good thing. But when you find yourself upon divorce, and especially a difficult one, you lose your identity. You have to remember who you are. And it's not for just yourself, especially when you have little ones. Finding your identity and who that person is is just as a mom. And you can lose yourself as well because you have to forget about the pain you're going through from a personal standpoint and instead turn to what your children need. And before you can get to that point of what do my children need, you have to work through your own feelings. At least I know I did. Shame, failure. There's a lot of different pieces of that puzzle that put it all together and somehow be strong enough to still have your children look at you as one whole piece, even though, let's be real, going through a season of divorce feels like your entire identity is shattered into about a zillion pieces on the floor. And you have to find a way to gracefully pick it up and get yourself together.

– Lonely Nights and Shame

SPEAKER_00 2:39

So during that period, for me, nighttime and after I got the three children in bed was the only time I could regroup and really think. But sometimes the hardest things we deal with are our own thoughts. And being alone at night and thinking on everything that could go wrong and had gone wrong was tough. But it wasn't just what could have, should have, or or what was possible in the future. It was things that I was struggling with on a daily basis.

– The Neighborhood Rejection Moment

SPEAKER_00 3:09

I remember one of the hardest moments of that era for me was realizing that people that were part of our family circle, and I'm not even talking family, I'm talking neighbors, people that surrounded my children saw me as something different. They saw my identity different and took it out on my children. We had kids in the neighborhood that would play with mine, and I'll never forget that moment of my youngest walking in very sad, went to the neighbor's house, and the neighbors would no longer let my children play with their kids. To see divorce through the eyes of your children in a way that affects them when it shouldn't, that'll break you as a mama. That'll break you. And it almost did. It almost did. Till I realized

– Broken Pieces Shape You

SPEAKER_00 4:00

what was trying to break me truly was shaping me in every single way. It made me more in tune with my babies. It made me have a stronger perception of the person that I could be and what the world should be. I have a very clear picture in my head that every broken piece of my life, and there have been many, like we all have, it's made me stronger. It's made me who I am. And because of that, I can think back a few years after going through my divorce and watching other people have to deal with something similar. It helped me step up to the plate to be, to be the woman, to be the neighbor, to be the friend, to be the woman that supports the other woman and lifts them up during that time. There's always one thing that I can come back to that can break my heart in half is thinking back to things that I wish could have been better for my children, but they weren't. And God took me through a season to teach me things, not just shape me, but to teach me, and not just for myself, but for the future, for the people that I would come into contact with and for my own children later, and to prove that you can go through the struggle and you can come out on the other side stronger than ever before. And

– Fueling Future Strength

SPEAKER_00 5:24

it didn't just make me stronger for my children or for people I would meet in the future. It actually made me stronger for my future self. Things that I would endure in life, from building a business to many other things that we all experience every single day. I knew I could survive. I knew I could, that it was possible, that I wouldn't wither away and crawl up in a little ball because life was throwing things at me. It taught me how to take that and not just it shape me, but me shape a situation on the way I looked at it, what I did with it, the fire it put in my belly. And when I say fire, sometimes that fire isn't all happiness. It's the frustration and the anger and the life is not fair. And this isn't the way it should have been. But I took it all and I fueled my future. I fueled who I would one day be. And so it wasn't just a gift God gave me for my children, but it was a gift that would be for my future self, and in turn for thousands of people that I have a truly blessed life to be able to serve now.

– Message From the Mess

SPEAKER_00 6:43

And I know I'm not the only one. Oftentimes, when we're going through our biggest struggles and it's messy, beyond messy, we can think that's that's it, that's the end. That is what that's what's going to do me in. And you know what they say? The message, it literally can come from the mess, and that's what happens. To be able to take that situation and listen closely. I personally believe God's talking to us at all times, and especially through the hard times. And what in your life could be happening right now that will put you in my situation later, and you'll be able to look back and go, it was a crazy time, it was a crazy ride. But that is why who I am today. And even from that one moment, that one season of my life that to this day is the hardest thing I've ever had to endure, it taught me survival. And who would have known that 20 years later, almost 20 years, that I would use that exact coping mechanism, if you will, but that that way of turning something so difficult into something so powerful, almost like a tool in my arsenal of things to survive, is exactly what I've done with the diagnosis of lupus. Now, although I'm still working through that and figuring out the best foot forward in everything I do, the truth is it's that survival mechanism. It's understanding how I can take something that feels so messy and make it work for me. And something that not only gets me through the next season of life, but enhances my life

– Lupus Diagnosis and Fear

SPEAKER_00 8:42

in turn. When I was first diagnosed with lupus, there were so many mixed emotions from relief, they finally found out what's wrong with me. It's not all in my head to, of course, Googling about five billion different things I did not want to see. But also the fear set in right away. The fear, the panic, once they figured out what it was, everything that could go wrong. But that survival moment kicked in. What I learned back through my hardest season, it's like an engine turned on inside of me. Because I remember what it was like to feel like that's it, it's the end of the line. I'm broken, I'm never going to come back, to understanding that I got this. I've been through

– Thriving: The Survival Engine

SPEAKER_00 9:39

worse. Once you've gone through the hardest part in life, once you've felt to the very inner part of pain, sorrow, regret, failure, all the things that unfortunately come with something like divorce or whatever season somebody goes through that's their hardest, and you survive it. You don't just survive, you thrive. Everything that comes your way, it's it's an inner mechanism. It's an inner engine that just like almost like a backup generator, if you will, it turns on. And you rely on that solely because you can dig to the very deepest part of you that knows I can do this. And just because I can turn that on, and inside I know I can I can thrive through this, I'm still learning, and things are still happening, and I'm still experiencing. And the beautiful thing about becoming is as you're in motion, you're always going to evolve. I'm evolving through this. Lupus has continued my education on survival in every single way. The

– Learning Limits and Discipline

SPEAKER_00 10:55

biggest thing I've learned from this particular illness, and it's the hardest thing for someone like me, is I'm not in full control. I have to understand my body, and I have to learn to love it through this time. And sometimes that's the hardest. Lupus is a true definition of frustration. Your body's not your own sometimes. You feel completely out of control. Someone like me who is always trying to overachieve and do more and work hard, and your body says, stop. It doesn't allow certain things. And it's really begun to teach me about discipline, about respecting my own body, my own mind, listening to what I need. I love teaching and serving others. And I'm always talking about how to listen to that whisper on your heart that God's placed. And what it's taught me is I have to learn to listen as well and start taking every single day as a lesson, a lesson in how to not just respect my body and for lack of better words, perfect the situation. What is best for what I need. And, you know, you see it in people you know, people who've dealt with illnesses, people that have to cope every single day. I feel blessed that I have something that I can work with.

– Stop Comparing Your Pain

SPEAKER_00 12:36

And one of the hardest things about what I go through is respecting the actual illness. I tend to go into comparison, meaning people that I love have cancer and I'll feel guilty for being tired. I will feel guilty about pain because my pain is nothing compared to their pain. So it's been a lesson in truly listening to my own advice and talking to myself as I would a best friend or my daughter or my children, my sons, my husband. If they were in pain, I would be telling them that their pain is their own. I would tell them to take care of it. And it doesn't, I cannot feel guilty about that. That's been the hardest thing for me because I'm a doer and I want to fix things. And this is something that I have to honor, but also tend to and not compare to and understand that everybody's journey is different.

– Breathe, Give Yourself Grace

SPEAKER_00 13:45

So if you're in a season at this very moment and you feel like there's nothing on the other side, this is it, this is what's breaking you. Breathe. Breathe and give yourself grace because you're here. You're strong. And most of all, you are stronger than you think. This won't break you. This will shape you. You have to allow it. You have to remember what you're made of. Bad things happen to really good people. And it's okay to hurt. I think sometimes we try to pretend everything's okay, and that hurts us more than anything. We don't cry, we don't hurt, we don't allow ourselves to grieve. Whether you're going through a divorce, losing a job, losing a loved one, it's all a grieving process to let go of what we thought should have been, and to embrace what you will be and to believe.

– The Becoming Question

SPEAKER_00 14:59

And just with every episode, I want to ask you a becoming question of your own. What season broke you? And what did you build from it? Thank you for being here today. And remember, friend, you are not late. You're not behind. You're not finished. You are still in the making. Keep becoming. Thanks for being here. If you know someone who needs to hear this, send it to them. And if this resonated with you, comment down below. I'd love to keep this conversation going. Make sure to follow along on YouTube and Instagram for daily updates. You can find everything in the description. See you next time.