Overcoming Heartbreak: Life's Adventure

Life has a way of rowing us in unexpected directions, especially after divorce. When my lighthouse suddenly disappeared—a significant relationship ending abruptly after I'd already downsized my home and podcast studio—I found myself adrift, questioning everything. 

What followed was a journey of rediscovery that took me across seven states on a three-week road trip, connecting with friends who opened their homes and hearts when I needed it most. Between driving with a windshield shattered by an 18-pound piece of metal (a near-death experience that left me covered in glass for a three-hour drive) and sleeping under the stars in Maui while whale songs filled the night air, I've had time to reflect on what truly matters and where this podcast needs to go.

Your messages about how Unyoked has helped your divorce recovery journey have been my compass through this challenging time. I've realized that divorce recovery isn't just for those in the immediate aftermath—it's also for those who've moved beyond being "the divorced person" but still carry wounds that need healing. This understanding has inspired me to expand with two YouTube channels: Unyoked Divorce Podcast specifically for recovery, and Unyoked Living for embracing life after being unyoked from past relationships. I'm also completing a men's workbook to complement the women's resource many of you have used.

Ready to join me for this next chapter? Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts, check out the YouTube channels for more frequent content, and remember that healing isn't linear—sometimes we need to stop rowing, sit still, and find our new lighthouse. What part of your journey could use some companionship right now?

• Transition to a minimalist lifestyle and its impact on the podcast.
• Navigating through unexpected relationship changes and self-discovery.
• Todd’s cross-country road trip and memorable experiences.
• The importance of a supportive community during challenging times.
• Exciting updates for the UnYoked Podcast and new content on YouTube.

Transcript

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Well, welcome to the Unyoked podcast. It has been a minute. I thought we would kick start sort of season three here with a little explanation of why it's been so quiet here and what's been going on in my life. There's probably only a few, a handful of you guys who will probably want this level of detail. But for those who have been asking, I just thought it was time to go ahead and unload sort of what's been going on here, where we're headed next, the purpose of the podcast. So let me, let me dive in first, let me say that you'll notice there's a weird thing going on behind me, and that's because I am in an apartment. I have downsized my life. I went from a four bedroom, two story, I had a yoga room, I had a podcast room at an office. Downsize it all. And I moved into an apartment with my son. And that was strategic. Cost me a lot of perks, I guess, when it comes to things that help me put together a podcast. I had a padded room with all the, the sound equipment and the lights and everything. And so I paused, partly because of the move, but the Move game was because I was in a relationship and I was in a pretty significant relationship that took a lot of my time. And, you know, if you remember the reason, when I started this podcast, I wanted to do 17 episodes, be done, create a book with that and move on. And then I got a lot of requests to keep going. So I made a Season 2, started interviewing different people, and then I, I paused. And part of the pause was because the relationship is, I was pouring time into that and I wasn't exactly sure how far, how much further I was going to go with the podcast, but getting emails quite frequently and comments on social media about how helpful this was just reminded me of my purpose. And so, you know, when I, when this relationship ended abruptly, it really threw me off. Moving into a new apartment already is a pretty big life change. Just downsizing and purging. Very healthy. I already did it once after my divorce, did it again. I've really downsized this time. And I like to think about minimalist, but I still own too much stuff to be called a minimalist. But I just, it was shocking to me because I really thought I had met the person I was going to spend the rest of my life with. And when you make the decision to rip that band aid off and I realized that it was not the person, it was not my person, it was a little bit of a bait and Switch really more than a little bit of me realizing that the person I dating was not the person who they said they were. And it hurt. It hurt a lot. And so as I sat in this apartment, I got through the holidays and I decided I needed to get away. And I told my friends, imagine rowing in a boat towards land. You see that lighthouse and you know where you're going, and then all of a sudden the lighthouse is gone. And my advice to people and to myself is sometimes you just have to sit, stop rowing, sit and think, ponder, pray, breathe. And so I did that. I went on a three week road trip to seven states and I loaded my Toyota FJ up with all the camping equipment and things that I would need. I literally did something that's super cool. You know how when you're traveling and let's say you're going through Albuquerque and later you tell your friend and they go, oh, we live right outside of Albuquerque, you should have called, we would have got together. So this trip, I looked at my dates, I looked at who I knew along the way and I literally reached out to multiple people and said, I am going to be in your area on this date. I'm going to be in your area on this date. Do you want to get together? And to a person in every city, not only did I get a yes, I got, oh, you're going to stay with me. And so I had people open up their homes for me all along the way. For three weeks. I stayed with some amazing friends, great people who were so generous, they were great listeners because I had a lot to say and it was, it was a wonderful trip. Also on that trip, a major thing happened. I was driving down the road between LA and Vegas because I was going to a concert and it was a sticks concert in Vegas. It was awesome, by the way. And I'm driving and I'm on a work call and I look up and I see this black thing in the middle of the road bouncing. And by the time I think, well, am I going to hit this or not? Of course you got to realize I'm driving, I'm talking and there's 18 wheelers all around me. I realize, I mean, just for a split second, that rubber, it's bouncing a little funny. I oh, it's going to go to my left. Oh, it went through my windshield. A 18 pound piece of a 18 wheeler. It's a strap holder, went through my windshield at 80 miles an hour. It blew glass all over me. It took me three hours to vacuum it out. Luckily, my Airbags didn't go off. It would have hit me. I would have been dead. If I had anybody beside me, they would have been dead. It came right into the passenger seat. Thank goodness I was alone. I drove three more hours with the hole in my windshield glass everywhere. Because when I say it was everywhere, countless pieces of glass, it's all over my face, all over my arms, all over my phone, all over everywhere. And if I moved, it fell down behind my back. And so I realized I can't move and I'm in the middle of the desert. What are you going to do? Anyway? So I literally just thought, okay, thank goodness for, you know, voice control. I was able to call my son and say, find me an auto glass dealer. And we found one in Vegas. So I drove three hours with a hole. And I'm going to put some pictures up for those of you who are listening. You can't see, but it was dramatic. It was a lot of praying and a lot of, hi, Lord, you trying to get my attention or thank you for. For not dying that away. But it was. It was an interesting trip with that. And I come home. I think I stayed home for one or two days. And then I hopped on a plane and flew to Maui to go whale watching with another friend. Another cool story about that is I slept outside every night on the lanai, on the patio, and I could hear the waves. I could hear whales breathing. If you've never gone whale watching, you should. We were right on the water and you could literally see. Hear the tail splashing or the fin splashing. Sometimes you can hear them breathe in the blowholes. And I just decided to sleep outside seven nights in a row. It was glorious. It just glorious. And I was trying to find my new lighthouse. I was trying to say, what am I going to do? What am I going to do with this podcast? What am I doing with my career? Where am I going to live? What's important to me? All the things. And so I was having a big reset, and somewhere along the way, I decided that I need to keep going with this on yoked podcast too. Too many requests. It's. I'm very passionate about people going through divorces, the ripple effect of divorces. And so here's how I've chosen to move forward. It's a little complicated because the whole situation is complicated. I find that people are going through a divorce, are normally so kicked in the stomach with it all that they. You can barely breathe and you're getting advice. Unfortunately, a lot of bad advice. Your head's not clear. Sometimes we don't make our own great decisions. I've talked about this in some of my episodes. Or your friends are there for you. They just want you happy. Doesn't mean they give you great advice. Which is why I created the podcast. But then I fall in this category. Maybe many of you listening do as well. You just don't want to walk around being a divorced person forever. You finally just reach the point of you're just single. And so it's not like you're even thinking about divorce recovery, but it doesn't mean you don't need it. And so I have created two, even though one podcast. I have two YouTube channels. One is the Unyoked Divorce Podcast. And that's where I'm going to focus on divorce recovery. But I also have Unyoked Living. And that is just what life is like when you're unyoked and you're not burdened by that relationship and what you can do in life and all the benefits and the travel that you can do, experiencing life, saying yes to things that you can't do in a relationship. And so I have onyoke Living and then the Unyield podcast, the what you're listening to, the audio version will probably be a blend of both. People can go back and find the seasons that they want. But I encourage you, if you go to YouTube, it would help me dramatically if you subscribe to either channel, watch the videos, like them, comment on them, that would be wonderful. Helps get discovered by the algorithm. That would be great. But just want to let you know, you can literally watch me with the various forms of content on YouTube or you can continue listening on Apple or Spotify or however you're listening to this right now. So I also have, I have a divorce book out for those who are going through divorce, navigating those first three months of deciding and executing. Then I also have a women's workbook and I have been really thinking and delaying creating a men's workbook. I have so many, I didn't think men would do one, but after people have read the women, they go, you should make one for men. And so I did. And I am working on it right now. I'm actually finished writing it. And my friend is writing a forward. I had a harmony dust, wrote the women's booklet forward. And I have my friend Wayne Stiles writing the forward for this. So as soon as he's done with the with writing that, I am going to put that out on Amazon. That's sort of the next big thing. And then I am going to start doing more interviews and getting this podcast back and running a little bit more consistently. I don't know if I will be weekly, whether it'll be a couple times a month, I'm not sure just yet. And maybe it'll just be more often. But on, on YouTube, I. I have content going out almost every day, at least three, four, five, six times a week at the very least, sometimes daily. So if you want to follow me there for little bite size bits, that's probably where you would do that. But anyway, I just wanted to come on here, let you know sort of where I've been, why I've been, where I've been and where we are going forward. But I am ready to keep going, keep ministering to those who are in pain, whose life has been uprooted by a divorce. And as we try to find our sea legs in life, things happen just like my situation. You meet somebody, you get the gut punch again of a failed relationship and it hurts. And I had to deal with that. Still dealing with it, to be honest, just to be very transparent. It's. If it's easy, that means your heart's hard. I don't want a hard heart, I want a soft one. But this one was pretty devastating to me and I'm sure I'll make an episode or two about that as well. So. All right, thank you for listening. Thank you for support, as always. Subscribe Like Please Comment Rating a podcast does so much for how it is found, the algorithms. So anytime you see me, if you could watch the video, like the thing comment, it's encouraging and it helps you get discovered and that would be glorious. All right, thank you very much.