Kelly and I — LiYana Silver, host of Waking Up in Heartbreak — talk about heartbreak, shame, and power: an exploration of what happens when a woman stops conforming to the script she was given and begins rebuilding from what is actually true.

In this episode, look and listen for:

• Why heartbreak often precedes our most meaningful transformations.
• How to stop asking "What's wrong with me?" and start seeing the bigger forces shaping our lives.
• The hidden relationship between your shame, your power, and women's conditioning.

I love this hair-raising, heart-melting conversation about the power we can only retrieve from right smack in our crying-on-the-bathroom-floor moments.

I know you will too.

About Kelly Diels

Kelly Diels is a teacher of marketing, messaging, and business-building with a feminist lens.

For fifteen years, Kelly has been the strategist behind New York Times bestselling authors and the brands, books, and women you already follow. She is also Culture-Maker. Political theorist. Chief Marketing Officer.

Kelly doesn’t just theorise about winning the game when the game's rigged — she did it broke, with two toddlers and no job. And she’s forensically devoted to building a better f-ing way: for you, me, and for all of us.

I have been Kelly’s client. And years later, Kelly has been my client.

To connect with Kelly: kellydiels.com

Book a Breakthrough Session with LiYana:

liyanasilver.com/breakthrough

Kelly refers to doing transformational coaching with LiYana in this podcast episode, as instrumental in ‘unleashing’ her and the next phase of her work in the world. This is that work.

Pre-order Waking Up in the Dark Night of Divorce

liyanasilver.com/wakingup

And receive two beautiful book bonuses:

1) The Waking Up Workbook to accompany the book, with all the practices from the book plus space for you to write and draw; and

2) Book Club with LiYana: 3 weekly meetings in which I’ll read from the book, we’ll practice together, discuss, and have Q+A.

Order Waking Up in the Dark Night of Divorce + book bonuses:

About LiYana Silver

Relationship coach and author of Waking Up in The Dark Night of Divorce and Feminine Genius, LiYana works with women at the knife’s edge of heartbreak — reckoning with divorce, breakup, and heartbreak so complex it feels like a dark night of the soul.

LiYana guides women (and their partners) through (not around) the darkest passages of their lives. Through her transformational methodology, LiYana helps individuals, couples, and groups reclaim what they lost in the relationship, break repeating patterns, and emerge awake, aligned, and lit-up.

A former professional dancer and lover of painting with oils, LiYana lives in Asheville, NC with her son, their two cats, and a frankly impressive number of houseplants.

Connect with LiYana:

Website ~ liyanasilver.com

Waking Up in The Dark Night of Divorce book ~ liyanasilver.com/wakingup

Feminine Genius book ~ liyanasilver.com/femininegenius

The Heartbreak Transformation Map ~ liyanasilver.com/map

Fresh From The Fire newsletter ~ liyanasilver.com/newsletter

Waking Up in The Dark Night of Divorce substack ~ liyanasilver.substack.com/

Being hard on yourself doesn’t make you stronger. It severs you from the very strength you need to make it through the Dark Night of Heartbreak.

In this episode, I explore the inner war we wage with ourselves: criticizing, shaming, overriding, restricting, pushing, and trying to defeat the parts of ourselves we’ve decided are the problem.

Heartbreak has a way of bringing us face to face with this relationship. As painful as this reckoning can be, it offers us an extraordinary opportunity: to stop turning against ourselves. To trade brute force for passionate conviction, intimidation for intimacy, overriding for understanding, and combat for kindness.

In this episode, look and listen for:

• How you stop fighting yourself.
• Why your heartbreak brings you face to face with how you treat yourself and demands you reckon with it.
• How the Excavation phase of a Dark Night of Heartbreak asks us to examine the beliefs, patterns, abandoned parts, crossed boundaries, and old stories that brought us here.
• The most important relationship you’ll have in your entire life

As one of my mentors asked me, I ask you: when you are at war with yourself and you win… who loses?

Resources mentioned in the episode:

Let This Heartbreak Remake You: episode that explores Initiation, phase one of the Dark Night of Heartbreak.

What I Said When She Called Me Sobbing: episode that explores Dissolution, phase two of the Dark Night of Heartbreak.

Pre-order Waking Up in the Dark Night of Divorce

liyanasilver.com/wakingup

And receive two beautiful book bonuses:

1) The Waking Up Workbook to accompany the book, with all the practices from the book plus space for you to write and draw; and

2) Book Club with LiYana: 3 weekly meetings in which I’ll read from the book, we’ll practice together, discuss, and have Q+A.

Connect with LiYana:

Website ~ liyanasilver.com

Waking Up in The Dark Night of Divorce book ~ liyanasilver.com/wakingup

Feminine Genius book ~ liyanasilver.com/femininegenius

Breakthrough Session with LiYana ~ liyanasilver.com/breakthrough

The Heartbreak Transformation Map ~ liyanasilver.com/map

Fresh From The Fire newsletter ~ liyanasilver.com/newsletter

Waking Up in The Dark Night of Divorce substack ~ liyanasilver.substack.com/

About LiYana Silver

Relationship coach and author of Waking Up in The Dark Night of Divorce and Feminine Genius, LiYana works with women at the knife’s edge of heartbreak — reckoning with divorce, breakup, and heartbreak so complex it feels like a dark night of the soul.

LiYana guides women (and their partners) through (not around) the darkest passages of their lives. Through her transformational methodology, LiYana helps individuals, couples, and groups reclaim what they lost in the relationship, break repeating patterns, and emerge awake, aligned, and lit-up.

A former professional dancer and lover of painting with oils, LiYana lives in Asheville, NC with her son, their two cats, and a frankly impressive number of houseplants.

Healing doesn't begin when we "rise from the ashes," but when we stop trying to avoid the fire. Welcome to this intimate, incendiary conversation with HeatherAsh Amara, mentor, land steward, philanthropist, and author of nine best-selling books, including Warrior Goddess Training.

Listen in, friend, as Ash and I talk about walking through fire, not around it, and how that remakes us into the person who emerges on the other side of the wreckage. As well as how our deepest losses can become invitations into a more intimate relationship with ourselves.

In this episode, look and listen for:

• The simple choice that transformed Ash's divorce from devastation into initiation.
• How Ash’s home and land was destroyed by wildfire, and what it taught her about presence, surrender, and staying with what cannot be saved.
• The difference between learning from the past and punishing yourself with it.
• The hidden agreements that heartbreak brings to the surface — including the belief, "I can't do this without them."
• Why so many of us have been taught to make romantic partnership the center of our lives — and what becomes possible when we stop.
• How to become the kind of person who can sit beside devastation without rushing to make it okay.
• What it actually means to refuse to abandon yourself in the middle of heartbreak.

Consider that this impossible time in your life isn't asking you to be stronger but is simply asking you to stay.

About HeatherAsh Amara

Best-selling author, mentor, land steward, and philanthropist, HeatherAsh Amara has spent the last three decades guiding her many loyal readers through the challenging contradictions of modern life. Seamlessly weaving spiritual wisdom with proven, practical tools for individual growth, HeatherAsh is a dedicated steward in creating a more just, compassionate, and creative global community.

HeatherAsh has written nine books and created numerous audio projects, including the bestseller Warrior Goddess Training, The Seven Secrets to Healthy, Happy Relationships with don Miguel Ruiz Jr., and her newest book Wild, Willing, Wise: An Interactive Guide for When to Paddle, When to Rest, and When to Jump Naked into the River of Life.

When she’s home, HeatherAsh plants her feet in New Mexico, but as a lifelong nomad, she spends much of her time traveling, teaching, and writing in cafés around the world.

Connect with HeatherAsh:

Website: warriorgoddess.com

Foundation: ashrose.org

Facebook: facebook.com/thewarriorgoddessrevolution

Instagram: instagram.com/thewarriorgoddessrevolution/

Substack, Out of the Fire: heatherash.substack.com/

Podcast, Warrior Goddess Revolution: https://warriorgoddess.com/podcast/

Books by HeatherAsh Amara

A Little Book on Big Freedom: Discover the Four Elements of Transformation

Warrior Goddess Training: Become the Woman You are Meant to Be

Warrior Heart Practice: A Simple Process to Transform Confusion into Clarity and Pain into Peace

Wild, Willing, and Wise: An Interactive Guide for When to Paddle, When to Rest, and When to Jump Naked into the River of Life

Books & resources mentioned in the episode:

Elizabeth Kübler-Ross and her work on The Five Stages of Grief

LiYana Silver’s forthcoming book, Waking Up in the Dark Night of Divorce

When you pre-order, you’ll receive two beautiful book bonuses:

1) The Waking Up Workbook to accompany the book, with all the practices from the book plus space for you to write and draw; and

2) Book Club with LiYana: 3 weekly meetings in which I’ll read from the book, we’ll practice together, discuss, and have Q+A.

Order Waking Up in the Dark Night of Divorce + book bonuses: liyanasilver.com/wakingup

About LiYana Silver

Relationship coach and author of Waking Up in The Dark Night of Divorce and Feminine Genius, LiYana works with women at the knife’s edge of heartbreak — reckoning with divorce, breakup, and heartbreak so complex it feels like a dark night of the soul.

LiYana guides women (and their partners) through (not around) the darkest passages of their lives. Through her transformational methodology, LiYana helps individuals, couples, and groups reclaim what they lost in the relationship, break repeating patterns, and emerge awake, aligned, and lit-up.

A former professional dancer and lover of painting with oils, LiYana lives in Asheville, NC with her son, their two cats, and a frankly impressive number of houseplants.

Connect with LiYana:

Website ~ liyanasilver.com

Waking Up in The Dark Night of Divorce book ~ liyanasilver.com/wakingup

Feminine Genius book ~ liyanasilver.com/femininegenius

The Heartbreak Transformation Map ~ liyanasilver.com/map

Fresh From The Fire newsletter ~ liyanasilver.com/newsletter

Waking Up in The Dark Night of Divorce substack ~ liyanasilver.substack.com/

A client called me recently at 1am, direct from a fiery, final breakup. Her message was soaked with inky, bottom-of-the-well despair.

What did I say to her? To her heartbreak? In her profound moment of loss? To help her make sense of her devastation — as well as past pain from her abandoning father that her devastation had resurfaced?

In this episode, look and listen for:

• Exactly what I told that despairing, grieving, heartbroken client.
• Why we all feel like our feelings might kill us.
• Why resistance makes things worse.
• How to resist the urge to fix, fight, or flee the most intense emotions that come up in heartbreak.
• The phase of Dissolution: the second phase of the dark night of heartbreak, when things really start to fall apart; the most intense, acute phase.
• How to know you’re in Dissolution, what to do when you are, and the 'medicine' this phase holds.
• Why the phase of Dissolution is key to who you are becoming (on the other side of the ordeal).
• What Now: resources and a practice, ‘Feel Without Fleeing’ to deepen and actualize this in your moment-to-moment life .

Resources:

• Pre-order Waking Up in the Dark Night of Divorce and receive two beautiful book bonuses:
• 1) The Waking Up Workbook to accompany the book, with all the practices from the book plus space for you to write and draw; and

• 2) Book Club with LiYana: 3 weekly meetings in which I’ll read from the book, we’ll practice together, discuss, and have Q+A.

• liyanasilver.com/wakingup

• Breakthrough Session ("Metamorphosis"): In just a few hours together, using my elegant breakthrough methodology, we’ll transform that long-standing, hard-to-look-at pattern that’s been warping your sense of yourself and your relationships. Expect more to transform in a single session than in months with other modalities.

• 2-hour Intensive + 45-min Integration. Three spaces open. Let’s dig in.
• liyanasilver.com/breakthrough

About LiYana Silver

Relationship coach and author of Waking Up in The Dark Night of Divorce and Feminine Genius, LiYana works with women at the knife’s edge of heartbreak — reckoning with divorce, breakup, and heartbreak so complex it feels like a dark night of the soul.

For over 24 years, LiYana has guided women (and their partners) through (not around) the darkest passages of their lives. Through her transformational methodology, LiYana helps individuals, couples, and groups reclaim what they lost in the relationship, break repeating patterns, and emerge awake, aligned, and lit-up.

A former professional dancer and lover of painting with oils, LiYana lives in Asheville, NC with her son, their two cats, and a frankly impressive number of houseplants.

Connect with LiYana:

Website ~ liyanasilver.com

The Heartbreak Transformation Map ~ liyanasilver.com/map

Fresh From The Fire newsletter ~ liyanasilver.com/newsletter

Waking Up in The Dark Night of Divorce substack ~ liyanasilver.substack.com/

Waking Up in The Dark Night of Divorce book ~ liyanasilver.com/wakingup

Feminine Genius book ~ liyanasilver.com/femininegenius

The Sacred Work of Falling Apart with host LiYana Silver & guest Mirabai Starr

What if the worst season of your life wasn't evidence that you've lost your way but an ancient passage that countless mystics have walked before you?

In this luminous and deeply personal conversation, Mirabai Starr, translator of Dark Night of the Soul and author of Ordinary Mysticism and I explore the Dark Night of the Soul: what it is, what it isn't, and why experiences like heartbreak, divorce, grief, and profound loss can become unexpected doorways into a more intimate relationship with ourselves, with love, and with what is sacred.

This is a conversation about surrender, soul, and the mysterious grace that sometimes arrives only after everything we thought would save us has fallen away.

In this episode, look and listen for:

• What the mystics knew about heartbreak.
• What the "Dark Night of the Soul" actually is and why it's far more than simply going through a hard time.
• Why divorce can become one of life's deepest spiritual initiations, whether you left or were left.
• The surprising difference between suffering that breaks us and suffering that transforms us.
• The moment when the spiritual practices, beliefs, and certainties that once sustained us sometimes stop working, and why that's not failure.
• Understanding grief not as weakness but as evidence of our capacity to love.
• Why authenticity, not positivity, is the most healing companion during heartbreak.
• Mirabai's own extraordinary story of love, loss, spiritual abuse, divorce, and the death of her daughter Jenny, and how those experiences reshaped her understanding of the sacred.
• What the mystics mean when they say that something in us must die before something truer can be born.
• Why there isn't just one dark night but many, and how each one invites us into a deeper intimacy with life.

I hope this conversation meets you in your own dark night of heartbreak, reminding you that you are not lost, even if everything familiar has fallen away.

Sometimes the deepest transformation begins precisely where certainty ends.

About Mirabai Starr

Mirabai Starr is an award-winning author, internationally acclaimed speaker, and interspiritual teacher. In 2020, she was honored on Watkins’ list of the 100 Most Spiritually Influential Living People. Drawing from 20 years of teaching Philosophy and World Religions and a lifetime of practice, Mirabai shares her wisdom worldwide on contemplative living, writing as a spiritual practice, and the transformational power of grief and loss.

Mirabai has authored over a dozen books including Wild Mercy, Caravan of No Despair, and renowned translations of sacred literature, including Dark Night of the Soul. Her most recent book, Ordinary Mysticism, has been praised by Anne Lamott as “a gorgeous, transformative, welcoming book is for anyone who longs to feel more present, more alive, more joyful and aware of the holiness of daily life”.

She lives with her extended family in the mountains of northern New Mexico.

For more, visit www.mirabaistarr.com.

Connect with Mirabai:

Website: mirabaistarr.com

Mirabai’s books: mirabaistarr.com/books/

Instagram: instagram.com/mirabaistarr

Substack: mirabaistarr.substack.com

Books & resources mentioned in the episode:

Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed

Caravan of No Despair by Mirabai Starr

Dark Night of the Soul (Mirabai Starr's translation of St. John of the Cross)

About LiYana Silver

Relationship coach and author of Waking Up in The Dark Night of Divorce and Feminine Genius, LiYana works with women at the knife’s edge of heartbreak — reckoning with divorce, breakup, and heartbreak so complex it feels like a dark night of the soul.

LiYana guides women (and their partners) through (not around) the darkest passages of their lives. Through her transformational methodology, LiYana helps individuals, couples, and groups reclaim what they lost in the relationship, break repeating patterns, and emerge awake, aligned, and lit-up.

A former professional dancer and lover of painting with oils, LiYana lives in Asheville, NC with her son, their two cats, and a frankly impressive number of houseplants.

Connect with LiYana:

Website ~ liyanasilver.com

Waking Up in The Dark Night of Divorce book ~ liyanasilver.com/wakingup

Feminine Genius book ~ liyanasilver.com/femininegenius

The Heartbreak Transformation Map ~ liyanasilver.com/map

Fresh From The Fire newsletter ~ liyanasilver.com/newsletter

Waking Up in The Dark Night of Divorce substack ~ liyanasilver.substack.com/

Pre-order Waking Up in the Dark Night of Divorce by LiYana Silver

And receive two beautiful book bonuses:

1) The Waking Up Workbook to accompany the book, with all the practices from the book plus space for you to write and draw; and

2) Book Club with LiYana: 3 weekly meetings in which I’ll read from the book, we’ll practice together, discuss, and have Q+A.

Order Waking Up in the Dark Night of Divorce + book bonuses: liyanasilver.com/wakingup

Welcome, friend, to the radical idea that shapes this entire podcast: Heartbreak isn’t just a breaking. It’s also an awakening. And a remaking.

When you're navigating divorce, separation, or the collapse of a dream you built your life around, you may feel completely lost. But, friend, you’re not lost. You are somewhere. You’re in one of life's most profound rites of passage: a dark night of heartbreak.

In this episode, look and listen for:

• Why heartbreak is far more than the end of a relationship; how it can become a profound spiritual initiation.
• A Dark Night of Heartbreak and it’s five phases, each that carry you from falling apart to emerging more fully awake, aligned, and lit-up.
• The first phase, Initiation: how you know you’re in it, what to do when you are, and the ‘medicine’ hidden inside it.
• My own dark night of heartbreak, journeying through illness and divorce, guided by my own inner nightlight.
• Three simple practices to help you resist trying to “get over,” “move on,” or just endure your ordeal, but instead to let this heartbreak remake you.

Resources:

• Pre-order Waking Up in the Dark Night of Divorce and receive two beautiful book bonuses:
• 1) The Waking Up Workbook to accompany the book, with all the practices from the book plus space for you to write and draw; and
• 2) Book Club with LiYana: 3 weekly meetings in which I’ll read from the book, we’ll practice together, discuss, and have Q+A.
• liyanasilver.com/wakingup
• The Heartbreak Transformation Map: a free guide clarifying why relationship loss feels so hard — and the five phases that help you through it.
• This map guides you through:
• The five phases of a Dark Night of Heartbreak
• What each phase is helping you learn, unlearn, and transform
• How to identify the phase you're in right now
• The medicine available in each phase
• The mindset, tool, or skill that will often help when you’re in that particular phase (but might not work in another phase!)

liyanasilver.com/map

About LiYana Silver

Relationship coach and author of Waking Up in The Dark Night of Divorce and Feminine Genius, LiYana works with women at the knife’s edge of heartbreak — reckoning with divorce, breakup, and heartbreak so complex it feels like a dark night of the soul.

For over 24 years, LiYana has guided women (and their partners) through (not around) the darkest passages of their lives. Through her transformational methodology, LiYana helps individuals, couples, and groups reclaim what they lost in the relationship, break repeating patterns, and emerge awake, aligned, and lit-up.

A former professional dancer and lover of painting with oils, LiYana lives in Asheville, NC with her son, their two cats, and a frankly impressive number of houseplants.

Connect with LiYana:

Website ~ liyanasilver.com

The Heartbreak Transformation Map ~ liyanasilver.com/map

Fresh From The Fire newsletter ~ liyanasilver.com/newsletter

Waking Up in The Dark Night of Divorce substack ~ liyanasilver.substack.com/

Waking Up in The Dark Night of Divorce book ~ liyanasilver.com/wakingup

Feminine Genius book ~ liyanasilver.com/femininegenius

Welcome to Waking Up in Heartbreak.

I suspect three things about you, if you’re here at a podcast titled Waking Up in Heartbreak:

1. Your heart is shredded. Your identity is dissolving. What you’re going through is so intense and complex it feels like a dark night of the soul.
2. Yes, you want relief. You want to be on the other side, glowing and confident. And you will. But something in you says, stay here for a spell: there’s something here in the very parts you’re tempted to skip over, that’s key to who you’re becoming. Who you become as you do the work of not skipping over, IS who helps you emerge.
3. There is an impulse, an indomitable strength or inner fire in you -- even if it feels faint at the moment -- that won’t let up until you are more fully awake, lit-up, fully yourself.

I think it’s precisely what led you here. Welcome.

I’m LiYana Silver, author of Waking Up in the Dark Night of Divorce and Feminine Genius. I’ve been a relationship coach for nearly 25 years, guiding women (and their partners) through deep transformation, all the way through heartbreak to rebuilding lives and loves that are unapologetically alive, beautiful, meaningful.

Here’s what we need to talk about:

• How to get through (but not bypass) the hardest parts
• Why losing yourself in relationships, especially for women, is not an accident but by design.
• The inner work of reclaiming yourself that has to happen before you rebuild your life.
• Trusting yourself (again), being good to yourself, and being as big and bright as you truly are

I know, this divorce or breakup feels like a failure, but it’s an initiation.

I know you might feel all is lost. Or you are lost. But you are somewhere: in one of life’s most potent rites of passage.

So come in close. Grab a soft blanket and warm beverage.

Let this heartbreak wake you and remake you.

About LiYana Silver

Relationship coach and author of Waking Up in The Dark Night of Divorce and Feminine Genius, LiYana works with women at the knife’s edge of heartbreak — reckoning with divorce, breakup, and heartbreak so complex it feels like a dark night of the soul.

For over 24 years, LiYana had guided women (and their partners) through (not around) the darkest passages of their lives. Through her transformational methodology, LiYana helps individuals, couples, and groups reclaim what they lost in the relationship, break repeating patterns, and emerge awake, aligned, and lit-up.

A former professional dancer and lover of painting with oils, LiYana lives in Asheville, NC with her son, their two cats, and a frankly impressive number of houseplants.

Connect with LiYana:

Website: liyanasilver.com

Waking Up in The Dark Night of Divorce book: liyanasilver.com/wakingup

Feminine Genius book: liyanasilver.com/femininegenius

The Heartbreak Transformation Map: liyanasilver.com/map

Breakthrough 1:1 Session: liyanasilver.com/breakthrough

Fresh From The Fire newsletter: liyanasilver.com/newsletter

Waking Up in The Dark Night of Divorce substack: liyanasilver.substack. com/