(light electronic music)
- Imagine spending 20 years with somebody,
and being married to them for 15.
And one day they come home from work
and say, they want a divorce.
It's devastating.
Hi, I'm Lea Woodford with "SmartFem and Friends,"
and with me today is new author Shawnte Kinney,
who wrote about that experience
in her new book, "Don't Be Bitter."
Hey, Shawnte, how are you? - Hey, Lea, I am good.
Thank you so much for having me here.
- Oh, I'm, it's such a pleasure.
I loved your story.
First of all, I've been impacted by divorce.
And tell me what that was like,
being married to somebody for so long,
and actually, I mean,
you were almost a child bride, when you guys,
'cause you guys had been together for 20 years?
- Yes, yes. - So, let's talk about that.
What was that like?
Walk us through that day.
- It was a Sunday, in June.
I will never forget it.
- You always remember the day, right?
- (laughs) You know, you remember the-
- The moment, everything. - Plainest things, yes.
- What you're wearing, everything,
in that kind of impact.
- Yes. - Tell me about it.
- He had been, he had been acting different
for quite awhile.
And he had been going in and out,
really working hard to avoid me.
And so finally, it was a Sunday,
and I just decided I wasn't gonna go to church.
I was gonna hide his keys,
and he was gonna get up
and he was gonna talk to me.
And so, when he got up,
and I remember he was sitting on the couch.
And I was like, "I don't know what's going on,
but let's talk about whatever it is
that is causing this problem."
'Cause for months I had been trying,
and he wouldn't.
And he just looked at me.
He said, "I don't love you anymore.
You don't make me happy,
and I want a divorce."
And I remember just, I was like, "Huh?"
Like, "What?"
He was like, "I want a divorce.
You have kept me from everything I have ever wanted,"
which was crazy- - Right.
- I am gonna tell you,
because I intentionally,
we got together when I was 20.
And we married when I was 24.
And one of the things that I always said was,
I was gonna do everything in my power
such that by the time I turned 40,
neither one of us would have any regrets.
So I just let him do whatever he wanted to do.
If he wanted, you know, he wanted to go back to school.
I handled the load.
He went back to school.
If he wanted to go out,
"Okay, go out."
If he wanted to go hang with friends,
whatever it is,
I just, you know, freedom to do it.
Any projects he was interested in,
"You want a new car?
Whatever it is you want."
So that we have no regrets.
It didn't bother me, so we have no regrets.
And for him to say, you know,
"You've kept me from everything I have ever wanted,"
I was like, "How did I get here?
How did I get here?"
And I remember, we were talking,
and he was just like, "I'm done."
And that's, I mean, with that attitude.
He was like, "I'm just done."
And I was like, "Okay."
And I remember walking outside.
I had my dog.
Her name is Bella (laughs).
While, I think I was just walking on a cloud,
'cause everything was just numb.
Because everything that I expected him to say,
of all the things I expected him to say,
"I want a divorce, and I don't love you no more,"
those were not the words-
- They're piercing words.
- Yeah, those were not the words,
because we never used those words.
We always said, because our,
"If we're gonna do this, we're gonna do it."
And I told God when I agreed to marry him,
I said, "If this doesn't work,
it's not gonna be because I didn't do everything
that I could possibly do."
But I never expected those words,
because we were the couple, no lie.
We were the couple (laughs). - It's tough when
you're the couple, isn't it?
- We were the couple,
and I'm not gonna say we were,
we, our marriage wasn't perfect.
We had our issues like everybody does.
But it wasn't, it wasn't bad.
I was probably unhappy with me,
but our marriage was not bad.
We did things, we talked.
We enjoyed each other,
or at least I thought we did.
But, you know,
when you're sitting in the middle of it,
I think you intentionally miss things.
You learn to live the story.
And so I was walkin' in quicksand
when I took her for a walk.
'Cause that's the,
of all the things that I possibly coulda did
right after he told me that,
I probably shoulda went upside his head.
But I decided that I was gonna take the dog for a walk.
And I remember sitting outside,
and I looked up to God,
and I said, "You know what?
I've lived a really good life.
This is a really good point for you
to just let me die."
And I was serious.
- Wow.
- I honestly thought that night
that I was gonna die in my sleep,
because I was like, "I don't wanna go through this."
This was, I mean, of all the things
I thought I would have to endure in my life,
a divorce was never one of them.
- They are never, never fun,
and they're, the pain is really real.
- Girl.
- And it stays for a long time.
- Whew, that was,
I don't think I, he was my first.
He was my first love.
He was my first boyfriend.
He was my first relationship.
So, and I grew up in him. - Wow.
I did, I mean, I grew up in that relationship.
That was all I knew.
All, I would tell him all the time,
"All roads lead back to you,"
because my entire life was wrapped up
in my husband, my marriage.
And, I mean, I was a good wife.
I mean, I wasn't a perfect wife,
don't get me wrong.
- Perfect doesn't exist.
- But I was a good, I was a good wife.
But, I was like, "Oh my."
- Well, that's enough about him.
(Shawnte laughs)
Let's talk about how you used that pain
to transform your life.
I mean, 'cause you did a,
(Shawnte laughs) complete 360, I mean.
Well, after, I spent the day crying.
I did, I spent the day crying.
I really tried to have a real breakdown.
'Cause I had been trying
to go into a depression for a while,
and I could never find time to actually do it.
And so, that next day I was like,
this is a really good time to just dive,
deep dive into a depression,
and nobody would think bad of me.
And I spent the next day crying,
and then the next day, I was like,
I'm just not gonna get out of bed again.
And I was just crying,
and I was just crying.
And it was like,
like God just literally looked down at me
and He was like, "How long you goin' do this (laughs)?
How long you gonna stay in this bed?"
And I was like, "Oh, not much longer."
He's like, "Okay, then get up, get up.
What is it that you want?"
And I decided,
I decided that next day, the following day,
that when I got to the other side of this,
I did not want to be bitter.
I did not want to be a bitter woman,
because all my life growing up,
I watched women have an event,
a man leave them,
them have a child,
they experienced some type of heartache or somethin',
and they were just mean, angry, bitter women.
And their life stopped at the thing that happened.
They never moved to the other side.
- I see that a lot in Scottsdale.
I think we're the divorce capital out here,
and so, that's why your book touched me,
because I experience it a lot out here.
And these women become angry and bitter,
and they never move past it.
And it really seeps into
every part of your life. - Yes.
- It's poison.
- Because, and I understand it though,
because that level of pain,
it will paralyze you.
I mean, there was some days, Lea,
I don't even know how I was walking and talking,
because every breath, every step I took,
it hurt to breathe,
because my life and this person that I loved
that I wanted to be with,
you just rejected me, like-
- You took vows before God. - We did, and he literally
told me, "Our vows don't mean anything."
'Cause I said, "We took vows.
What are you doing?"
He said, "Those vows don't mean anything to me."
That killed me.
Like a part of me was dead.
I was numb for a very long time,
so I can understand that.
And you really wanna lay in that pain,
because it becomes so comfortable,
and then everybody around you are,
"Oh, I understand, I understand."
And you wanna lay in it,
but I made the decision,
I didn't wanna stay in that.
I didn't want to stay there.
I wanted to see what the other side was.
- And so (laughs), - And what does that
other side look like for you?
- That other side is amazing (laughs).
- Tell us how you,
walk us through the steps
of how you got there. - I, I'm gonna tell you,
fitness saved my life.
Fitness saved my life.
That was one of the biggest things.
And I was raised in church,
so my relationship with God was essential.
God honestly, in the book,
the book really details about everything
that I would get every single day.
I created this world.
I called things to myself,
and I know that sounds a little crazy,
but I called nothing but positive stuff to me.
I rejected everything that was negative.
I wanted to, I needed to change my energy.
So every day, I would open Facebook,
and it would be something positive and uplifting.
Or somebody would send me a text,
and it would be positive and uplifting.
Or I would read something, and it would feed me.
And I allowed in nothing but positive stuff,
you know, things that would encourage me
and would move me.
And so, that's what I called my manna.
Every single day, I spent time
in meditation, in prayer.
And fitness more than anything,
there were days where I didn't know how to move
and I literally would have to just go and work out.
And I would spend hours sometimes working out.
I met the most amazing trainer.
His name is Cedric,
and he was absolutely God-sent.
And I learned to box.
I just, I moved.
I honestly moved, because movement at that time,
movement, I think,
in any sort of situation is essential.
So there would be times,
there would be nights when I would be
just ready to explode (laughs),
because I would be trying to talk to my ex-husband,
or he wouldn't talk to me.
I had no closure.
We went, after he told me he wanted the divorce,
we went a whole year, and he just,
there was nothing.
He never filed.
He did nothing.
And I'm just like, okay,
well maybe that means that he wants to get back together.
So, but all of these emotions
are burning up inside of me.
And I was going from anger to,
and I needed to get it out.
I needed to get it out.
I needed to purge myself of that thing that was bubbling
and was trying to take control of me,
because it's real.
- It is real, I've had it. - It is, it's really real.
- (laughs) I've experienced it.
- It's real, so journaling was one.
Meditation was one, and working out.
So I would, there would be days,
of just angry, just oh, just angry.
And my trainer, he would give me the jump rope.
And he was, he'd be like, "Jump."
And I'm like, "I don't feel like jumping."
He would like, "Yeah, but jump."
And so I would jump, and I would jump.
And as I would be jumping,
tears would just be rolling down my face,
or I would be screaming,
just getting it out,
just, honestly just getting it out.
And we would punch.
And he would like, "Let's punch.
Punch until you can't punch anymore,
just to get whatever's in you,
all of that anger, get it out of you.
You need movement."
And then, I would be able to sleep at night.
You know what I'm sayin'?
I changed my eating habits.
I changed the things that I absorbed.
I started looking for things
that brought me more light,
and were more positive,
and inspired hope inside of me.
And the more I did that,
the more the anger was just being pushed aside.
So something else more positive,
with more light and more love was coming in,
and all of that bad stuff was just moving out.
And when I started this process,
I thought it was just about divorce.
But I ended up purging myself
from childhood pains, and societal pains,
and culture pains,
just all of that, these obligations,
this guilt, this, all of it.
And it just began to just move itself
out of the way.
And in came all of this good stuff.
I began to fill my muscles with good stuff,
and that was a big transformation.
And so now, now, I hold no anger in my heart.
I mean, I'm actually grateful,
because had that life not ended,
this life wouldn't a never happened (laughs).
- Oh, that is so inspiring, Shawnte.
I'm so, for somebody just stunned with a new divorce,
and really, you know,
just crippled with the pain right now,
what are three tips that you would give them?
- (sighs) The first one, and this was hard.
This was really hard.
The first one is, you have to accept
that bad things happen,
that some, you know,
sometimes people just don't want you anymore.
Sometimes people, they find somebody else.
It's hard to accept.
That is really, really, really hard to accept.
But you have to accept it.
You have to learn to accept it,
and know that there's another side of it.
The other thing is, forgiveness.
- Powerful. - You cannot find happiness,
you cannot find yourself,
you cannot be your greatest self,
and live your truths,
holding on to unforgiveness.
Forgiveness is key.
It is key.
You cannot move to the next level
without forgiveness in your heart.
- Amen.
- You cannot do it.
And the last thing,
and when I say forgiveness,
you even have to forgive yourself.
There was, you know-
- Women, especially,
we internalize everything. - Yeah, yeah.
- We blame ourselves for everything.
- You have to give yourself grace,
and you have to forgive yourself.
I had to forgive God.
I had to forgive myself.
I had to forgive the entire world, for real,
and it wasn't easy.
It was not a easy process.
It was not easy looking at myself in the mirror,
while, you know,
'cause I wanted to blame him for everything.
But then I had to start looking at me.
And so you forget, you learn to forgive yourself.
And the last thing that I really wish
somebody would of told me at the very beginning of this,
was, everything is for a reason.
No step is ever wasted, not a single step.
You spent 20, because you start thinking about that.
You're like, I gave him the best years of my life (laughs).
- I thought that a time or two (laughs).
- But you know what?
Every step, everything that you go through, it's essential.
All of it is designed
to send you to your greatness.
Because I believe, what I've learned,
is pain properly handled,
will propel you into greatness.
- Yes. - If you take that pain,
and you allow that pain,
you know you embrace it,
and you allow it to move you,
it will seem, it will help you find strength
that you didn't even know you had.
- You know, it's, it's, - So powerful.
- Properly handled, it will send you into greatness.
So no step is ever wasted.
No day is ever wasted.
No emotion is ever wasted.
No time is ever wasted.
All of it is for our benefit.
- Wow. - All of it, and so.
- Shawnte, thank you so much. - Thank you (laughs).
- Powerful words, my friend, powerful words.
- Thank you.
- This has been Lea Woodford,
with "SmartFem and Friends."
Thanks for watching.
(light electronic music)