"I can't afford it." Four little words that sound completely reasonable. Four words nobody ever pushes back on. Four words that end the conversation every single time.

And sometimes they're simply true. But a lot of the time, those four words are hiding something much deeper.

In this episode of Better Because of Divorce, host and certified life coach Julie Steed unpacks what often lives underneath "I can't afford it." And it's almost never really about money. It's about risk. It's a quiet, deep lack of trust that if you take a chance and it goes sideways, if you get hurt again, you won't be able to handle it.

Julie is careful to honor the truth that sometimes the money genuinely isn't there, and there's no shame in that. But for many women, "I can't afford it" has become a socially acceptable cover for fear, and that fear doesn't just cost you one decision. It costs you everywhere. The trip you didn't take. The job you didn't apply for. The date you didn't say yes to. The second chance at love you talked yourself out of.

You'll also meet the two kinds of women who stand at the same threshold: one who moves through the fear and one who lets it decide for her. And you'll hear what becomes possible on the other side of "yes," through the real stories of women who started exactly where you are.

The story underneath "I can't afford it" has been quietly writing your life — closing doors you never even noticed closing. But once you can see it, you can choose differently.

Want to go deeper? Join the FIERCE Sisterhood Facebook community for free resources, support, and tools to help you rebuild your life after divorce. 

👉  https://www.facebook.com/groups/782137499436219

About Julie:

After 23 years of marriage and a betrayal she never saw coming, Julie  found herself starting over from scratch. No roadmap. No guarantee it would be okay. Just the decision that her life was worth rebuilding.

Julie is now a Certified Life Coach, a Health and Wellness Coach, and founder of the FIERCE Sisterhood — a transformative community for divorced women ready to rebuild their lives from the inside out. She hosts the Better Because of Divorce podcast because she believes divorced women deserve more than surface-level positivity. They deserve real, lasting transformation.

She knows what it costs to start over. And she knows what's possible on the other side.

Connect with Julie:

🔥 For more information about the FIERCE Sisterhood: Email SISTERHOOD to [email protected]

🎤 Listen to Better Because of Divorce: Available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts

💬 Join the private Facebook community: Find us on Facebook here

🌐 Learn more: juliesteed.com

This podcast provides information only, and does not provide any financial, legal, medical or psychological serv...

You're doing everything right. Therapy. Journaling. Talking it out with friends who understand. You are healing, and you have been for a long time.

So why do you still feel stuck?

In this episode of Better Because of Divorce, host and certified life coach Julie Steed shares the hard truth she learned the slow way after her own divorce: that healing can quietly become a trap. A place to hide. Something that feels like progress while you never actually step toward the life you want.

Julie opens up about the cycle of healing she lived, crying her way to work, performing through the day, commiserating with friends at night, and calling all of it healing, while taking zero action toward a life that was actually hers. 

Then she shares the story of a client who had a whole community around her but couldn't trust herself to make a single decision without their approval, and what finally changed.

You'll also learn the research-backed reason your brain keeps you stuck, and once you understand how it works, you'll never see your avoidance the same way again.

You do not have to wait until you feel healed to start loving your life. Living is the healing. And the longer you wait, the more it costs you.

Want to go deeper? Join the FIERCE Sisterhood Facebook community for free resources, support, and tools to help you rebuild your life after divorce. 

👉  https://www.facebook.com/groups/782137499436219

About Julie:

After 23 years of marriage and a betrayal she never saw coming, Julie  found herself starting over from scratch. No roadmap. No guarantee it would be okay. Just the decision that her life was worth rebuilding.

Julie is now a Certified Life Coach, a Health and Wellness Coach, and founder of the FIERCE Sisterhood — a transformative community for divorced women ready to rebuild their lives from the inside out. She hosts the Better Because of Divorce podcast because she believes divorced women deserve more than surface-level positivity. They deserve real, lasting transformation.

She knows what it costs to start over. And she knows what's possible on the other side.

Connect with Julie:

🔥 For more information about the FIERCE Sisterhood: Email SISTERHOOD to [email protected]

🎤 Listen to Better Because of Divorce: Available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts

💬 Join the private Facebook community: Find us on Facebook here

🌐 Learn more: juliesteed.com

This podcast provides information only, and does not provide any financial, legal, medical or psychological serv...

For decades, I reacted to my life. I thought I had a temper. I thought that was just who I was.

The truth was harder and simpler than that. I had never learned how to manage or process my emotions. And everyone around me lived inside the fallout. My marriage was an emotional minefield. My ex and my daughters navigated the unpredictability. And I believed it was simply my personality.

Today my life looks completely different. My relationship with my daughters is stronger than ever. My ex and I are amicable. And I am in a relationship built on safety and reciprocity instead of emotional charge. I went from an emotional minefield in my marriage to emotional safety in my own life, and not one bit of it came from my circumstances changing. It came from one shift inside myself.

In this episode, I break down the difference between reacting to your life and building it, and why, after divorce, reacting feels like the only option you have. I explain the space that exists between what happens and how you respond, why reacting digs the hole deeper, and why intention is the only stairway out.

I'll also share why you can't just decide to be less reactive. 

When I changed, every relationship in my life changed with me. The same is possible for you, and it starts with seeing where you're reacting and where you're building.

Want to go deeper? Join the FIERCE Sisterhood Facebook community for free resources, support, and tools to help you rebuild your life after divorce. 

👉  https://www.facebook.com/groups/782137499436219

About Julie:

After 23 years of marriage and a betrayal she never saw coming, Julie  found herself starting over from scratch. No roadmap. No guarantee it would be okay. Just the decision that her life was worth rebuilding.

Julie is now a Certified Life Coach, a Health and Wellness Coach, and founder of the FIERCE Sisterhood — a transformative community for divorced women ready to rebuild their lives from the inside out. She hosts the Better Because of Divorce podcast because she believes divorced women deserve more than surface-level positivity. They deserve real, lasting transformation.

She knows what it costs to start over. And she knows what's possible on the other side.

Connect with Julie:

🔥 For more information about the FIERCE Sisterhood: Email SISTERHOOD to [email protected]

🎤 Listen to Better Because of Divorce: Available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts

💬 Join the private Facebook community: Find us on Facebook here

🌐 Learn more: juliesteed.com

This podcast provides information only, and does not provide any financial, legal, medical or psychological serv...

So many women tell me that one of the biggest hurdles after divorce is the loss of self confidence. The inability to trust themselves. The feeling that the woman they used to be — capable, certain, grounded — somehow disappeared along with the marriage.

But here is what I want you to consider. Divorce didn't take your self confidence. Something else did. And in this episode of Better Because of Divorce, host and certified divorce life coach Julie Steed breaks down exactly what that is and why understanding it so important.

When you know what actually happened to your confidence, you stop waiting for circumstances to change before you can get it back. You start to see that it was never really gone. It was just buried. And you already have everything you need to find it again.

Julie shares the real definition of self confidence, why you likely have more of it than you think, and what it looks like when a woman does the work to rebuild it, including the story of a client who went from one text from her ex derailing her entire day to leading a travel group through Croatia.

Your confidence is still there. It is waiting for you to come find it.

Want to go deeper? Join the FIERCE Sisterhood Facebook community for free resources, support, and tools to help you rebuild your life after divorce. 

👉  https://www.facebook.com/groups/782137499436219

About Julie:

After 23 years of marriage and a betrayal she never saw coming, Julie  found herself starting over from scratch. No roadmap. No guarantee it would be okay. Just the decision that her life was worth rebuilding.

Julie is now a Certified Life Coach, a Health and Wellness Coach, and founder of the FIERCE Sisterhood — a transformative community for divorced women ready to rebuild their lives from the inside out. She hosts the Better Because of Divorce podcast because she believes divorced women deserve more than surface-level positivity. They deserve real, lasting transformation.

She knows what it costs to start over. And she knows what's possible on the other side.

Connect with Julie:

🔥 For more information about the FIERCE Sisterhood: Email SISTERHOOD to [email protected]

🎤 Listen to Better Because of Divorce: Available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts

💬 Join the private Facebook community: Find us on Facebook here

🌐 Learn more: juliesteed.com

This podcast provides information only, and does not provide any financial, legal, medical or psychological serv...

After divorce, something powerful happens. Women get moving. They lose weight, start businesses, start dating, build something new. The results are real. The progress is real. The accomplishments are genuinely theirs.

But sometimes the fuel behind all of that action has nothing to do with them.

In this episode of Better Because of Divorce, host and certified divorce life coach Julie Steed introduces a concept she calls dirty fuel - when you take real action and achieve real results, but the catalyst behind everything you are doing is anger, resentment, hurt, or the desire to impact someone else instead of genuinely benefit yourself.

Dirty fuel works. That is what makes it so complicated. It gets you out of bed. It builds things. It produces outcomes you are proud of. But it keeps you tethered to the very person and the very pain you are trying to move past. And at some point, dirty fuel stops being the thing that moves you forward and starts being the thing keeping you stuck.

This episode is not about shame. It is about one of the most honest conversations you can have with yourself about what is really driving you and what becomes possible when you convert that fuel to something cleaner.

You did not go through all of this just to keep running a race with someone else's finish line. There is a version of everything you are building that is entirely, completely, quietly yours.

And that version is worth fighting for.

Want to go deeper? Join the FIERCE Sisterhood Facebook community for free resources, support, and tools to help you rebuild your life after divorce. 

👉  https://www.facebook.com/groups/782137499436219

About Julie:

After 23 years of marriage and a betrayal she never saw coming, Julie  found herself starting over from scratch. No roadmap. No guarantee it would be okay. Just the decision that her life was worth rebuilding.

Julie is now a Certified Life Coach, a Health and Wellness Coach, and founder of the FIERCE Sisterhood — a transformative community for divorced women ready to rebuild their lives from the inside out. She hosts the Better Because of Divorce podcast because she believes divorced women deserve more than surface-level positivity. They deserve real, lasting transformation.

She knows what it costs to start over. And she knows what's possible on the other side.

Connect with Julie:

🔥 For more information about the FIERCE Sisterhood: Email SISTERHOOD to [email protected]

🎤 Listen to Better Because of Divorce: Available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts

💬 Join the private Facebook community: Find us on Facebook here

🌐 Learn more: juliesteed.com

This podcast provides information only, and does not provide any financial, legal, medical or psychological serv...

Strong independent women are really good at okay.

And from the outside, okay looks like enough, but it's really survival mode in disguise.

In this episode of Better Because of Divorce, host and certified divorce life coach Julie Steed makes the case that okay, as hard as you worked to get there, is not the goal. It is not healing. And it is not anywhere close to the life you actually deserve.

Okay has a therapist. Okay has friends. Okay has a support system and a routine and a life that functions. And none of that is the same as having the tools to build a life that is authentically, fully, unapologetically yours.

In this episode Julie breaks down the three hidden costs of staying in okay, and why the longer you stay there, the further you get from the woman you are becoming.

You did not survive your divorce just to spend the rest of your life managing it. There is so much more available to you than okay. And it starts with being willing to admit that okay is not enough.

Want to go deeper? Join the FIERCE Sisterhood Facebook community for free resources, support, and tools to help you rebuild your life after divorce. 

👉  https://www.facebook.com/groups/782137499436219

About Julie:

After 23 years of marriage and a betrayal she never saw coming, Julie  found herself starting over from scratch. No roadmap. No guarantee it would be okay. Just the decision that her life was worth rebuilding.

Julie is now a Certified Life Coach, a Health and Wellness Coach, and founder of the FIERCE Sisterhood — a transformative community for divorced women ready to rebuild their lives from the inside out. She hosts the Better Because of Divorce podcast because she believes divorced women deserve more than surface-level positivity. They deserve real, lasting transformation.

She knows what it costs to start over. And she knows what's possible on the other side.

Connect with Julie:

🔥 For more information about the FIERCE Sisterhood: Email SISTERHOOD to [email protected]

🎤 Listen to Better Because of Divorce: Available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts

💬 Join the private Facebook community: Find us on Facebook here

🌐 Learn more: juliesteed.com

This podcast provides information only, and does not provide any financial, legal, medical or psychological serv...

After divorce, staying busy feels like strength. A full schedule, a packed calendar, falling into bed exhausted every night. It looks like resilience. It looks like keeping it together.

But busyness is one of the most socially acceptable ways to avoid feeling anything at all. And if you have been moving nonstop since your divorce, there is a very good chance you have been outrunning yourself without even knowing it.

In this episode, Julie shares her own experience of using busyness as armor and why she now knows that surviving is not the same as living.

The only way to find out who you are on the other side of divorce, what you want, what your life is supposed to look like, what you've been carrying, is to get quiet enough to hear yourself.

These three questions will help you do exactly that.

You cannot scroll your way to a life you love. But you can get quiet enough to hear yourself. And that changes everything.

TOPICS: divorce recovery, healing after divorce, finding yourself after divorce, identity after divorce, emotional healing divorce, divorced women, empty nest after divorce, self discovery after divorce, divorce life coach, reconnecting with yourself.

Want to go deeper? Join the FIERCE Sisterhood Facebook community for free resources, support, and tools to help you rebuild your life after divorce. 

👉  https://www.facebook.com/groups/782137499436219

About Julie:

After 23 years of marriage and a betrayal she never saw coming, Julie  found herself starting over from scratch. No roadmap. No guarantee it would be okay. Just the decision that her life was worth rebuilding.

Julie is now a Certified Life Coach, a Health and Wellness Coach, and founder of the FIERCE Sisterhood — a transformative community for divorced women ready to rebuild their lives from the inside out. She hosts the Better Because of Divorce podcast because she believes divorced women deserve more than surface-level positivity. They deserve real, lasting transformation.

She knows what it costs to start over. And she knows what's possible on the other side.

Connect with Julie:

🔥 For more information about the FIERCE Sisterhood: Email SISTERHOOD to [email protected]

🎤 Listen to Better Because of Divorce: Available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts

💬 Join the private Facebook community: Find us on Facebook here

🌐 Learn more: juliesteed.com

This podcast provides information only, and does not provide any financial, legal, medical or psychological serv...

If you've been divorced for a while and you're still stuck in the same patterns, still talking yourself out of the same decisions, still waiting for the right moment to finally move forward, this episode is for you.

The reason you're not moving isn't what you think it is.

It's not your circumstances. It's not bad timing. It's not that you're not ready.

It's something else entirely. 

In this episode, Julie Steed shares her own story of rationalizing her way out of the very thing that changed her life and and breaks down three signs that fear, not wisdom, is making your decisions after divorce and into the empty nest years.

If you've ever known exactly what you needed to do and talked yourself out of it anyway, you'll want to hear this.

Want to go deeper? Join the FIERCE Sisterhood Facebook community for free resources, support, and tools to help you rebuild your life after divorce. 

👉  https://www.facebook.com/groups/782137499436219

About Julie:

After 23 years of marriage and a betrayal she never saw coming, Julie  found herself starting over from scratch. No roadmap. No guarantee it would be okay. Just the decision that her life was worth rebuilding.

Julie is now a Certified Life Coach, a Health and Wellness Coach, and founder of the FIERCE Sisterhood — a transformative community for divorced women ready to rebuild their lives from the inside out. She hosts the Better Because of Divorce podcast because she believes divorced women deserve more than surface-level positivity. They deserve real, lasting transformation.

She knows what it costs to start over. And she knows what's possible on the other side.

Connect with Julie:

🔥 For more information about the FIERCE Sisterhood: Email SISTERHOOD to [email protected]

🎤 Listen to Better Because of Divorce: Available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts

💬 Join the private Facebook community: Find us on Facebook here

🌐 Learn more: juliesteed.com

This podcast provides information only, and does not provide any financial, legal, medical or psychological serv...

One of the hardest situations divorced women face is showing up to a family event — a wedding, a graduation, a birthday party — when your ex is going to be there with his new girlfriend, fiancée or wife. The anxiety starts before you even walk in the door. And for many women, the answer is simply: don't go.

But avoidance isn't healing. 

In this episode of Better Because of Divorce, host and certified divorce life coach Julie Steed shares a raw, personal story from a recent family wedding and breaks down exactly how she navigated it with her dignity, her grace, and her sense of self fully intact.

Because here's what Julie wants every divorced woman to hear: when you choose not to show up, she is still controlling your life. You deserve to be in the room. You deserve to take up space in your own family's life. And you can learn how to do that, even when it's hard. Especially when it's hard.

If you've been skipping family events, dreading co-parenting milestones, or letting fear of running into your ex's new woman keep you from living your life, this episode will give you the tools, the mindset, and the permission to show up anyway.

You don't do this by being the person you've always been. You are somebody new now. And somebody new has to be willing to do things she has never done before.

Want to go deeper? Join the FIERCE Sisterhood Facebook community for free resources, support, and tools to help you rebuild your life after divorce. 

👉  https://www.facebook.com/groups/782137499436219

About Julie:

After 23 years of marriage and a betrayal she never saw coming, Julie  found herself starting over from scratch. No roadmap. No guarantee it would be okay. Just the decision that her life was worth rebuilding.

Julie is now a Certified Life Coach, a Health and Wellness Coach, and founder of the FIERCE Sisterhood — a transformative community for divorced women ready to rebuild their lives from the inside out. She hosts the Better Because of Divorce podcast because she believes divorced women deserve more than surface-level positivity. They deserve real, lasting transformation.

She knows what it costs to start over. And she knows what's possible on the other side.

Connect with Julie:

🔥 For more information about the FIERCE Sisterhood: Email SISTERHOOD to [email protected]

🎤 Listen to Better Because of Divorce: Available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts

💬 Join the private Facebook community: Find us on Facebook here

🌐 Learn more: juliesteed.com

This podcast provides information only, and does not provide any financial, legal, medical or psychological serv...

If you're going through a divorce or recently divorced and feeling overwhelmed, lost, or ashamed about your finances, this episode is for you.

Julie sits down with Dr. Barb Provost, founder of Purse Strings, to talk about financial recovery after divorce.

Dr. Barb holds a doctorate in adult education and spent over two decades in the financial services industry watching women get overlooked, talked over, and underserved. After navigating her own divorce and listening to hundreds of women share their fears around money, she built Purse Strings, a free platform that gives women financial education and access to a vetted directory of financial professionals who actually prioritize women.

In this episode you'll learn:

• Why women are the wealthiest market on the planet.
• Three practical steps to start reclaiming financial control after divorce right now
• How to know if you actually have credit in your own name, and what to do if you don't
• How to find and interview a financial professional
• Why knowing your numbers is the single most powerful thing a divorced woman can do for her financial future

Free resources from Purse Strings: pursestrings.co

• Free budget worksheet
• Free Family Emergency Financial Guide
• Vetted directory of financial professionals who specialize in serving women

Want to go deeper? Join the FIERCE Sisterhood Facebook community for free resources, support, and tools to help you rebuild your life after divorce. 

👉  https://www.facebook.com/groups/782137499436219

About Julie:

After 23 years of marriage and a betrayal she never saw coming, Julie  found herself starting over from scratch. No roadmap. No guarantee it would be okay. Just the decision that her life was worth rebuilding.

Julie is now a Certified Life Coach, a Health and Wellness Coach, and founder of the FIERCE Sisterhood — a transformative community for divorced women ready to rebuild their lives from the inside out. She hosts the Better Because of Divorce podcast because she believes divorced women deserve more than surface-level positivity. They deserve real, lasting transformation.

She knows what it costs to start over. And she knows what's possible on the other side.

Connect with Julie:

🔥 For more information about the FIERCE Sisterhood: Email SISTERHOOD to [email protected]

🎤 Listen to Better Because of Divorce: Available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts

💬 Join the private Facebook community: Find us on Facebook here

🌐 Learn more: juliesteed.com

This podcast provides information only, and does not provide any financial, legal, medical or psychological serv...