Uploaded December 2025 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
After divorce, friendships can feel like a ghost town. Your old people? Gone. New people? Where are they hiding? And somewhere in the middle, you’re trying to remember who you even are.
In this season finale, I’m joined by my friend and fellow coach Diana Swillinger (Renew Your Mind Podcast) for a real talk about rebuilding your social circle when life flips the table. We cover how to let go of draining relationships, how to make new friends (yes, even in your 40s, 50s, 60s... and beyond), and why rejection isn’t going to kill you. Probably.
This episode is for every divorced Christian woman who feels like she’s starting over and wondering if it’s too late.
💡 What You’ll Learn:
✅ Why friendships shift after divorce, and that’s totally normal
✅ The three pillars of healthy adult friendships (hello, energy balance)
✅ How to stop taking fading friendships so personally
✅ What “Let Them” (and “Let Me”) really looks like in friendships
✅ Practical ideas for finding your people (even if you’re introverted or exhausted)
📚Feel like a hot mess after divorce? My FREE 5-Day Workshop (flyingfreenow.com/five-day-workshop/) will teach you a mind-shift tool to help you learn a powerful way to manage your thoughts and emotions in order to navigate adult decisions with clarity and peace.
📲 Follow the podcast on your favorite platform
👍 Like this episode? Hit that LIKE button and SUBSCRIBE for more honest conversations for Christian women after divorce.
Related Resources:
🚀 Flying Higher (https://joinflyinghigher.com) is my private mentorship program for Christian women pursuing increased confidence, emotional management, relational health and empowered self-development.
🎧 Check out Diana’s website and listen to The Renew Your Mind Podcast (dianaswillinger.com/renew-your-mind-podcast/)
📒 Read the full show notes at flyingfreenow.com/dcw212
#DivorcedChristianWoman #ChristianDivorceSupport #RebuildingAfterDivorce #MakingFriendsAfterDivorce #HealingFromAbuse #FaithBasedHealing #FriendshipAfterDivorce #FlyingHigher #LetThemGo #ChristianWomensPodcast #DivorceRecoveryJourney #EmotionalHealingForWomen #NatalieHoffman
After divorce, friendships can feel like a ghost town. Your old people? Gone. New people? Where are they hiding? And somewhere in the middle, you’re trying to remember who you even are.
In this season finale, I’m joined by my friend and fellow coach Diana Swillinger (Renew Your Mind Podcast) for a real talk about rebuilding your social circle when life flips the table. We cover how to let go of draining relationships, how to make new friends (yes, even in your 40s, 50s, 60s... and beyond), and why rejection isn’t going to kill you. Probably.
This episode is for every divorced Christian woman who feels like she’s starting over and wondering if it’s too late.
💡 What You’ll Learn:
✅ Why friendships shift after divorce, and that’s totally normal
✅ The three pillars of healthy adult friendships (hello, energy balance)
✅ How to stop taking fading friendships so personally
✅ What “Let Them” (and “Let Me”) really looks like in friendships
✅ Practical ideas for finding your people (even if you’re introverted or exhausted)
📚Feel like a hot mess after divorce? My FREE 5-Day Workshop (flyingfreenow.com/five-day-workshop/) will teach you a mind-shift tool to help you learn a powerful way to manage your thoughts and emotions in order to navigate adult decisions with clarity and peace.
📲 Follow the podcast on your favorite platform
👍 Like this episode? Hit that LIKE button and SUBSCRIBE for more honest conversations for Christian women after divorce.
Related Resources:
🚀 Flying Higher (https://joinflyinghigher.com) is my private mentorship program for Christian women pursuing increased confidence, emotional management, relational health and empowered self-development.
🎧 Check out Diana’s website and listen to The Renew Your Mind Podcast (dianaswillinger.com/renew-your-mind-podcast/)
📒 Read the full show notes at flyingfreenow.com/dcw212
#DivorcedChristianWoman #ChristianDivorceSupport #RebuildingAfterDivorce #MakingFriendsAfterDivorce #HealingFromAbuse #FaithBasedHealing #FriendshipAfterDivorce #FlyingHigher #LetThemGo #ChristianWomensPodcast #DivorceRecoveryJourney #EmotionalHealingForWomen #NatalieHoffman
![What if “Biblical Womanhood” is Actually a Trauma Response? [380]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/wBqGvG1CXVU/mqdefault.jpg "What if “Biblical Womanhood” is Actually a Trauma Response? [380]
Let’s talk about something called “the subjugation schema.” Its a clinical pattern that secular psychologists are actively trying to help women heal from, and the conservative Christian church has rebranded the exact same wound as godliness, biblical womanhood, and a high calling.
If youve spent your life apologizing for taking up space, smiling when you wanted to scream, or feeling guilty about basic human needs like rest, preferences, and an opinion of your own, this episode is going to feel like someone finally turned the lights on.
Key Takeaways:
- Meet Rachel and Megan: two composite women, two very different engines driving the exact same wound. Find out which one might be running you in the background right now without your permission
- The four specific ways the conservative Christian church installs this pattern in little girls and quietly reinforces it in grown women
- Why mutual submission, complementarianism, and servant leadership might be the same old subjugation wearing a friendlier nametag
- The story of Sapphira in Acts 5 that quietly dismantles the always submit to your husband theology youve been handed
- The one journal question at the end of the episode that might wake up the woman who has been hiding underneath your schema for decades
Get Today’s Free Resource:
🎁 I want to give you a free gift. It’s the audio version of my book, All the Scary Little Gods. It’s a spiritual memoir about healing from religious trauma and toxic programming. You can listen to it FREE by going to scarylittlegods.com
I will also send you my weekly Hope Letters for Christian women in emotionally and spiritually abusive marriages.")
![Do You Need Someone to Rescue You? [355]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/wtJ3J0qaTWU/mqdefault.jpg "Do You Need Someone to Rescue You? [355]
✨ “What if you’ve been hoping to be saved... when you already are?” ✨
In today’s episode, I’m asking a question that might just blow the roof off your religious conditioning: What if salvation isn’t something you earn, but something that’s already been purchased and given to you?
I’m sharing a personal story that changed my life: the moment I sat in a hotel room, surrounded by 20 years of marriage journals, made a terrifying decision… and was met not with condemnation, but with overwhelming JOY and peace. The kind of joy religiosity never gave me.
🛑 If you’ve been:
- Staying in a toxic marriage because you think God said you had to…
- Working yourself to the bone to earn God’s approval…
- Terrified that one wrong move will send you slipping down the slippery slope of sin…
This one’s for YOU.
We’re talking:
✅ What the Bible really says about divorce (hint: God’s not a fan of abuse)
✅ Why performance-based faith is not the gospel
✅ The difference between knowing you’re saved... and actually believing it
⚡️ Get ready to breathe out fear and breathe in freedom.
🎁 Listen to my book, All the Scary Little Gods, FREE by going to scarylittlegods.com.
🎙️ Check out related Flying Free Podcast episodes: “Two Hotel Rooms: One Rescue Mission” (https://www.flyingfreenow.com/344-2/) and “Praying for a Miracle — When the Miracle Might Be You Walking Away” (https://www.flyingfreenow.com/337-2/).
📒 Read the full show notes at https://www.flyingfreenow.com/355
#ChristianDeconstruction #FlyingFree #ReligiousTraumaRecovery #SpiritualAbuse #FaithFreedom #WomenOfFaith #DivorceRecovery #NatalieHoffman")
![Navigating Discard, Revenge, and Unsupportive Friends [371]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/xDsMerL0mUc/mqdefault.jpg "Navigating Discard, Revenge, and Unsupportive Friends [371]
In this episode we tackle three questions: What happens when the abuser is the one who leaves? How do you live with the fear of post-separation or post-divorce revenge? And what do you do when your friends just dont get it?
🔑 Key Takeaways:
- Why some abusers discard their victims (and what it reveals about your progress)
- The difference between fear you should listen to and fear that steals your peace
- What actually helps kids navigate their father leaving
- The one question to ask yourself when trying to help someone understand your experience
- Why chasing validation from people who dont get it creates unnecessary suffering
Get Today’s Free Resource:
📒 Take a free Emotional Abuse Assessment by going to emotionalabusequiz.com
I will also send you my weekly Hope Letters for Christian women in emotionally and spiritually abusive marriages.")
![The Subtle, Insidious Nature of Spiritual Abuse [352]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/xcVyo6ltDzg/mqdefault.jpg "The Subtle, Insidious Nature of Spiritual Abuse [352]
🙋♀️ What if the very place you went for love and safety became the source of your deepest wounds?
In this episode, I chat with trauma recovery practitioner and author Katherine Spearing about the sneaky, sinister ways spiritual abuse shows up in our lives, often dressed up as “love,” “concern,” or my personal favorite: “biblical authority.”
We talk:
- What spiritual abuse actually is (it’s more common than you think)
- Why “God wants your holiness, not your happiness” is toxic, manipulative theology
- How to reclaim your autonomy and trust yourself again
- The heartbreaking cost of patriarchy in Christian spaces
- And yes, we go there with the stay-at-home daughter movement, church trauma, and the sandbox of doom (you’ll get it when you listen)
This one’s deep, real, and SO validating.
📢 SUBSCRIBE & HIT THAT BELL 🔔
Dont miss future episodes full of truth bombs, healing insights, and the occasional sarcastic takedown of toxic theology.
👇 Drop a comment if this hit home or if youre just done playing in that churchy little sandbox. We’re building castles on the beach now. 🏖️
Related Resources:
🧐 Are you wondering what is happening inside your own painful and confusing marriage? I wrote a book just for you called Is It Me? Making Sense of Your Confusing Marriage: A Christian Woman’s Guide to Hidden Emotional and Spiritual Abuse. Get a free chapter when you sign up for my mailing list at the top of my website: https://flyingfreenow.com
👹 My book, All the Scary Little Gods (https://www.flyingfreenow.com/all-the-scary-little-gods/), is a spiritual memoir about healing from religious trauma and toxic programming.
🦋 The Kaleidoscope (https://joinflyingfree.com) is our ridiculously affordable online community educating and supporting Christian women in emotionally abusive marriages. Whether you want to stay in your marriage or leave, we can equip you for the next part of your journey through this program.
🚀 Flying Higher (https://joinflyinghigher.com) is my private mentorship program for Christian women who want to go deeper and work with me in a smaller group.
📚 Katherine’s book, A Thousand Tiny Paper Cuts
📒 Read the full show notes at https://www.flyingfreenow.com/352
#FlyingFree #SpiritualAbuse #ReligiousTrauma #KatherineSpearing #ChristianDeconstruction #ChurchHurt #FaithRecovery #ToxicTheology #Patriarchy #FlyingFreePodcast
Katherine Spearing MA, CTRC is the founder of Tears of Eden, a nonprofit supporting survivors of spiritual abuse, and the former executive producer and host of the groundbreaking podcast Uncertain, a podcast that pioneered pivotal conversations around spiritual abuse. She also is a Certified Trauma Recovery Practitioner working primarily with clients who have survived cults, high-control environments, spiritual abuse, and sexual abuse. Katherine is a huge advocate for the power of art to help us on our healing journey. She participates in improv theater both as a performer and coach and is the author of one novel. A Thousand Tiny Paper Cuts, her new book on spiritual abuse, addresses the survivor’s recovery journey. She has been a guest on a number of podcasts, including IndoctriNation and A Little Bit Culty, is the author of several nonfiction articles, and writes regularly at katherinespearing.com and tearsofeden.org.")
![How to Change Yourself While Still Stuck in an Emotionally Abusive Marriage [256]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/y5bx_dY2EwQ/mqdefault.jpg "How to Change Yourself While Still Stuck in an Emotionally Abusive Marriage [256]
How to Change Yourself While Still Stuck in an Emotionally Abusive Marriage [256]")
