Love Unlocked: Decluttering Your Heart with Lisa Begley

Robin Fisher Roffer: When you come to the table with three kids and he has never been, you're married. You're divorced with three kids and he's never married no kids. That's a dynamic that takes a lot of talking through before you can move forward. And I don't think we, again, it's like I almost, know, Robin, it's like I did it again. I got married the first time at 19. We didn't talk about foundational values and morals and religion and politics and financials and kids. Do you want them? Do you not? Like all those things that you should kind of sift through, at least have. on the same wavelength, right? Welcome to the Plenty of Husbands podcast for women who are older, wiser, and hotter. This is where we inspire women in midlife to believe they can love again. I'm your host, Robin Fisher-Roffer, and I've had nine proposals and three marriages. And despite all that messiness, I've kept believing. And finally, I found the love of my life at 55, and that was nine years ago. Now what I've learned is that you can have too many husbands, but never too much love. And I know that love is waiting for you too, no matter how many husbands you've had. Now let's meet today's guest. Lisa Begley is a podcaster and the author of The Sock Drawer Philosophy. She is a storyteller and self-reinvention guide helping others to navigate the messy middle. with clarity, courage, and heart. With a background spanning decades in international travel, corporate leadership, entrepreneurship, and motherhood, she writes from lived experience, not just theory. Her debut book, The Sock Drawer Philosophy, offers thoughtful insights, simple mindset shifts, and practical tools for anyone ready to stop waiting and start rebuilding a life that feels like their own. one braid step at a time. Lisa, welcome to plenty of husbands. I'm so happy you're here. My gosh, Robin, thank you for that beautiful intro. It's so fun to be here. I'm looking for a dark conversation. Me too, because I am, okay, I'm gonna admit it, a little bit OCD. So when I saw what you're about, I was like, yes, let's declutter the messiness of love. You have just gotten a divorce. Your boyfriend has just moved out, finally, thank God. Or unfortunately, you've lost the love of your life. How does somebody go about decluttering their life for love? It sounds hard to me. I know a lot of women in this position and I know you are the expert at decluttering. So help us to understand maybe some of the first couple steps we need to take. That's a great question. here, you know, for me, my decluttering came more so now I've been divorced twice and you're in the plenty of husbands club. I am. Listen, here's a story. I remarried my first husband. So we got married young, right? I mean, love at 19 years old. What do you know? Right? You don't know. ⁓ but we'd been friends for five years and we'd been connected and, and all the things, but we married, we stayed married for 18 years. had three beautiful children. And after 18 years, it just didn't feel right anymore. It didn't feel, there was no love. You know, I was looking for this. He was looking for that. We had really kind of grown apart. And you were so young. We were so young, right? It was so, we were so young. And that. You know, I'm not saying you can't get married at 19. I'm just saying there are things that I've learned over the years that we've both learned really in that you have to at least have some structure, some foundational things that you want to know about and be kind of aligned with before you go in. But we didn't know that. So long story short, we married 18 years the first time we divorced amicably, thankfully for our kids sake and all of the above, we stayed connected because we were really good friends. If anything, we had a foundation of solid friendship and what I like to call the show up factor, right? So we always showed up for each other. And then divorced 16 years, I remarried, he moved a couple of people in, so I remarried, up remarrying somebody who we just were not, we were unhealthy. We were not a good fit. It was bad, right? ⁓ and we had a pretty tumultuous couple year parting of the ways. What was it about him that brought him into your life and your heart? I think, and I can look back now, I didn't know this at the time, but when I, when Trent and I divorced the first time, I thought this is what I'm missing. This is what I need. And rather than taking time and here's what I would say to anybody. You've got to debrief. You've got to go through a grieving process. It could be two weeks. It could be two years, 10 years. It doesn't matter. You've just got to figure yourself out before you can give 100 % of yourself to somebody else, right? That is tough too. So that's decluttering, right? It's yourself. You've got to declutter yourself from all the, you know, first of all, shame of getting divorced, especially when you have three children. It's heavy. and you tried everything that you could, am I right? Yeah. Here you are. And I guess, I'm guessing Lisa, you were probably a really good student. You'd always done really well in your life and here you were. I know that's I felt. felt, ⁓ there's a black mark on me. There's the, you know, scar. So that's why, so how did you ⁓ break free of him? How did, how long did it take? Well, you talk about my second marriage. Yes. Yeah. So I realized, I thought this was the love of my life. I thought this is my right person. ⁓ my gosh, he was just romantic and this and that, whatever. Everything I thought I was missing in the first round. when it came to, we were so like oil and water. Like when it came to just living life day in and day out, we were so far opposite of what we should be. We didn't know that. were so caught up in the chemistry. We were so caught up in the other things. And so we decided that was, well, we didn't decide. mean, we, chemistry was like split apart, both got lawyers. Then it was the ugly divorce, right? My first divorce was okay. It was the ugly divorce. It took a couple years. you know, went through some stuff. It took literally him leaving the area. Like he moved across country. I was able to finally get on with my life because we were constantly like unhealthfully. Is that even a word unhealthily like drawn back to each other all the time. It was not good. so the decluttering was to actually move away from each other. much the decluttering. I have a philosophy, which is lock and delete. I'm sorry. you are like, you know, tossing a toddler back and forth. And your kids are old enough and they can have their own relationship with their father. like, declutter him, get him out. And I think of your life, let the kids have that relationship. But in this case, you didn't even have kids with him, right? No, not at all. In fact, I find that to be a difficult thing. like the, in theory of it, I like the theory of block and delete. For me, unfortunately, it wasn't as easy said as it was, you know, it's easier said than done. Let me say it that way. because it was, I don't know what it was. Like we both had some... Karma. don't even, chemistry that was unhealthy. It just wasn't a good healthy relationship. You almost had a magnet with him. You just could not decouple. Yeah, and I mean, he's an okay human, know, he's good. mean, and he's great. mean, he's flourishing and all those things, but at the time, like, it was just so unhealthy. So... It was a rough patch and there was a lot that we had to go through restraining orders and fighting over everything. We had bought a car, we had bought a house, we had pretty much everything but the kids. Thank God above that that didn't happen. So it wasn't for a couple of miscarriages because it was trying to happen. And I think God had other plans and that was, I'm so grateful to that to this day. all that to say 16 years after that, I took a step back. And that was the decluttering part for me was like, okay, I have to get myself in order. Cause I went through about a three year, I'll be honest, and my kids would tell you, I went through about a three year hiatus. You can call it a decluttering period. was like, it was a complete like breakdown. Like I just, I was drinking and I was doing this. I was torturing myself, you know, for so many different reasons. Guilt, shame, all of the above, but then also like, I was so unhappy and I was spending my life trying to prove myself that I was happy. You know, I literally bought a car that Ford Escape, we'll never forget. This is how ridiculous I was. I bought a yellow, bright yellow Ford Escape. And on my license plate, I chose a personalized license plate that said, happy girl. I wasn't far this thing from a happy girl. What was the thing? It was me. Right? It was so. I'm fine. We're fine. Everybody's fine. You're fine. I'm fine. We're all fine. That was the idea. And like, I wanted to be strong for my kids. Instead, I was a big mess. anywho, it took me many years after that to recover and sort of take a step back. hurt a lot of people in the meantime. Like you said, it was three years. Did something happen in that third year where you just said, okay, I got to get with it? And what did you do to get with it? I stopped drinking for a while because that was... taking me down a path that I didn't even want to think about. I stopped drinking for a while. I really, was kind of, I was on my own. At that point I was traveling around all the, traveling around the country for a job that I had at the time. And so it kept me busy and that helped. And then it kept me focused for a little bit, you know. Did you do therapy or go into work to help you to reorganize your life and declutter from this human who was clearly in your cellular body. Yeah, I did therapy for probably two and a half, three years every week for a while. And when I was in town and that was the hard part, you know, but ⁓ I did therapy. You own. Yeah. ⁓ yeah. I had my own house. I was all by myself. Well, actually right after the divorce, that divorce in the midst of all that craziness is when I bought my first home by myself. And I was very proud of that. Very proud of that. Yeah, I mean, anywho. I would like to say, I think that's important. know, I had such a temptation after my third marriage because I had my daughter with me. I had full custody at that time. And I thought, I'm going to buy this house that I had with my ex. I'm going to buy him out of this house, and that'll be our house. And then had a very good friend and a real estate expert say to me, I've seen so many women do this and continue to live in the past. Let go of this house. move forward and get your own place. And I even, the first thing I did was I got rid of the mattress we slept on and I got a brand new mattress. I started to reorganize my life around opening up to a new partner and getting like myself out of that house, out of some, know, take the furniture. I don't care. I to start fresh. Did you feel like that? Not for a while. Not for a while. I think a lot happened in that. to cause that three years, wasn't just the horrific divorce. There was a couple of other things that kind of was like the trifecta, you know, of trauma. And that took me down the path. But in the meantime, I'm always a kind of a keep moving forward person or what I thought was moving forward. So that's when I bought the house and, you know, had probably a new car or a different car every couple of years. So I had had a different car, sort of cleaned it out. And I don't think buying the house really was a part of like decluttering. ⁓ I'm going to do this, you know, nothing I did was ever like, I'll show him, you know, and I know a lot of women will do that. And that's just not, mean, not that I was cognizant of what I was doing at all back then, but you know, look back now and I go, I know I wasn't doing it for that reason. I was doing it, trying to pull myself out of a hole. that I had let myself get in, I think. And become independent from him, I'm sure. You know, I think part of the problem was I was never dependent on him, if that makes sense. I think that was part of it, is like, you know, and let me tell you, you know, when you come to the table with three kids and he has never been, you're married, you're divorced with three kids and he's never married no kids, that's a dynamic that takes a lot of talking through. before you can move forward. And I don't think we, again, it's like I almost, know, Robin, it's like I did it again, you know? I got married the first time at 19. We didn't talk about foundational values and morals and religion and politics and financials and kids. Do you want them? Do you not? Like all those things that you should kind of sift through, at least be on the same wavelength, right? We didn't do that. Same thing with the second round. conversations about what you wanted and what your shared values were and what the vision for your life should be. Exactly. Exactly. So you, I assume that, and you tell me if I was wrong, that you were deeply hurt by the ending of this relationship and you were probably afraid to fall back in love again, I'm guessing. You know, so long. somebody now in hindsight how to let go of what's holding them back emotionally, that pain. Do you have any? ideas around that. I know your book has so many ideas on how one step at a time you really declutter and move forward in a clean way, in an open way. Is there anything you can share with the audience? Yeah, I think now, you know, looking back, the one I would spend more time alone and figuring myself out first. Whether it's through therapy, through time alone, meditation, walking, healing, just healing my own heart. But you don't know that, you know, when you're in the thick of it, it's hard to do that. It's hard to see through all the muck, right? All the clutter, right? It's hard to see through that and make yourself do that. like, so I totally have so much empathy and for women who are going through and they're just deeply hurt. I was already hurt just because it was an amicable divorce the first round. It doesn't mean that there wasn't a grieving process I should have gone through or I shouldn't have understood that that's like an appendage that's now gone, you know? Yeah. Yeah, it's the same with the second one. Like even though it was more tumultuous and hateful and it was just not a good, you know. experience, but looking back now, I can see the mistakes I see. So anybody going through that, I would say take, take time to grieve it, take time to process it, whether it's through therapy or whatever soothes you, take time because otherwise you're, it's hard to find the love of your life. The one you're meant to be with when you can't see the forest for the trees. When you're just out there thinking, okay, I missed in this one. Here's what I was missing. Here were my deficits, but this guy has it. So I'm going to go, he has all those deficits that I thought I was missing here. So I'm going to jump on this train, you know, and it's, it doesn't work that way. It's like a, you're trying to distract yourself instead of focusing on what happened. What was your part? What was your part? That's a key phrase and what you, what you need, but also willing to sacrifice to accommodate what your partner might need and that it takes sacrifice or relationship. It takes the willingness to give and balance things out through relationships. So 16 years later, know, Trent came and got me and I remarried him and we've been married your first husband. Yeah. 2017. Gosh. And we're it's, you know, I mean, listen, remarried. 2017, so the father of your children is still your husband. Yeah. Is now again my husband. Yeah. Did he also get married during that time or find somebody during that time that you did find a couple of people, moved them in, but never actually took vows and remarried. My gosh. So there was always this invisible cord between you. 100%. That's a good way to put it. We just, like I said, we had the show up factor. And to me, That is, I wouldn't say everything, but it's a lot. When you have the show up factor for each other, no matter what you're going through, no judgment, no nothing. You're in turmoil, you need help, I'll show up for you. That's huge, right? Love that That's how we've built our family. And you show up each other. Wow. Our grandkids will be the same way. What do the kids say when they describe them? Oh gosh. talk about it. Like, what are some of the things they say? I don't know because I made him tell them because he was more adamant. I think if there was ever a thought, we didn't really talk about it because we stayed friends, right? We stayed friends when our kids got married. We stayed friends when grandkids were born. We stayed friends with holidays. Sometimes we would celebrate holidays together, you know, so it We always knew we'd have to find partners that could tolerate that. That was probably another downfall of mine and definitely a downfall of his. Yeah, people just couldn't understand. They couldn't understand the relationship. People think, unfortunately, the connotation is you're divorced, you're angry and you're hateful to each other, right? And there's some sort of divide between you. And that wasn't the case for us. So it made it seeing other people or having a relationship with someone else, unless they were at an emotional EQ level that they could tolerate that and confident enough in themselves to do that. And I get it, that's hard to do, know, like be friends with the ex, you know, like it is hard. Yeah, that's a challenge in and of itself. So you do you must have some friends that are out there dating. Do you do you have any friends that are out there dating? Let me think about that. Wow. So you surround yourself with people that are happily married or in a marriage. You don't know how happy they are. mean, nobody really knows, but. Right. All right. Yeah. I don't, I don't think I purposefully do that. I just think that, you know, we were so locked into family. We have a very small group of friends. have a best friend and her husband who live in Lancaster where we raised our kids, because we raised our kids together and Trent's got a lot of friends through his work. But here we have our neighbors that we hang with and they're married 40 some years and the rest is like family, right? So kids like our kids, their partners, parents, our friends, and they're still married. So it's very family oriented and that must have been a big value for you and Trent. That's got to be an anchoring value for you two that brought you back together. It has to be. So I do have friends that are single and it was the most important issue of this podcast in my new upcoming book, Plenty of Husbands. And many of them are diving into dating without a clue as to what they're looking for or what their part was in the demise of their relationship. And I have other friends that are working vigorously on uncovering all those things. Good for them. Getting to the heart of the matter so that they... can be happy and love again one day. But I love how you, in your book, you talk about small mindful actions that can really transform a situation. What advice would you give to women that are out there dating that they could take to find clarity in their life? I love that question. And I'll tell you, honestly, I think it starts with you. It has to start with you. You have to look within yourself. You have to be willing to accept your faults and your, you know, parts in whatever relationships you've been in. And I think once you kind of almost welcome that and realize that, and you're okay with it, humbly, you know, respectfully, it's, it's okay. Now I feel like you can do that. So I think it starts with looking inward first. think one of the things, if you're afraid of getting out there, putting yourself out there again, that's so normal. and just know you're not alone in that. And I think that, you know, one of the things that I created was called this drawer method, right? Called the drawer method. And it's just a simple acronym for steps and small tiny steps and processes. So once you feel ready, but you're afraid, the first step is really just to decide to do it. You have to look yourself in the mirror and say, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna do whatever the step is. to start dating again, whether it's getting myself out there, doing an app, whatever it is, however you want to do it. You have to decide to, and then you have to kind of remove the obstacle that's keeping you from doing it. You have to make sense of that. What is that? Right? And then apply it. Apply yourself, apply your knowledge, whatever it is, right? And then you just have to wing it and you're going to make mistakes and you're going to have, you're going to meet some frogs. and you're gonna have to go through that process, right? You know it, you know you're gonna have to do that. But I think if you literally write down a list, so I didn't finish my drawer acronym, so wing it, and then take a step back and kind of reevaluate, right? Evaluate what took place, what happened, what went wrong, what did you like, what did you not like? And write it down if you want. Like, I'm not a good journaler. I don't ever recommend journaling. I don't do it myself. of unknown, it's so important to write it down. So decide to. decide to and then R is remove the negative remove whatever is holding you back. Eight is apply yourself, apply your knowledge, apply your actions, whatever it is you have to apply. If you don't apply it, you're not going to do it. Right. And then U is wing it, just wing it. You got to go for it. Right. And then E is kind of evaluate, take a step back and evaluate what happened. How did it work out? How did it not work out? What'd you like? What'd you not like? And then R is rinse and repeat. So you just take those steps. Take a step, take a step, know, one small baby step. But I think the first thing is to look inward. Look inward. Okay, so I'm getting so many takeaways from this. Looking inward. And I love the wing it. Just go for it. And then evaluate, write it down. Like what happened? And talk it out maybe with a girlfriend. repeat, just keep doing it just because it didn't work the first time. try again, right? And that, those are some great takeaways. I love that Lisa. All right, everyone. Lisa, you're amazing. I love this whole idea of decluttering your life. I had no idea that you were gonna give us all a full circle love story today. That is incredible. You married somebody at 19, had three beautiful children, went off and married somebody else. He went off with other people and then you You stayed in touch, you stayed friends and came back to each other to live happily ever after. And you did it through this drawer method, which helps you reorganize your life and give yourself clarity and let go of the clutter. just love all of these wonderful lessons that you've given us today and an inspirational story that I have to say I haven't heard before. And I was completely unexpected. I love surprises. It is unique. sure. It's amazing. So that's a wrap on today's episode. Until the next time, I want you to practice the drawer method, but also the ABCs of love, action, belief, and courage. It's time to step into your next chapter and live your greatest love story. This is Robin Fischeroff, your host of the Plenty of Husbands podcast. See you next time.