A Journey of Resilience: How I Never Gave Up

In this deeply personal episode, I reflect on a powerful reel that brought me right back to one of the darkest seasons of my life—my divorce. I share what it felt like to be in that deep place of despair and isolation, and how I reached out to a higher power when no one else could truly understand what I was going through. This episode isn’t just about pain—it's about resilience, emotional intelligence, and the healing journey that unfolds when you’re willing to surrender and rebuild from the inside out.

I talk candidly about what it means to seek support, the limitations of human advice, and why turning inward—and upward—was the only thing that helped me pull myself out of the darkness. If you've ever felt misunderstood, betrayed, or broken, this conversation is for you. My hope is that my story will help light the path for yours.

Episode Highlights:

[0:21] - A touching reel about love, strength, and asking for help sparks deep reflection
 [1:34] - Remembering the lowest point during my divorce and the desperate need for support
 [2:41] - Turning to God when no one else could understand my pain
 [4:55] - The risks of seeking advice from others with their own unhealed wounds
 [6:14] - Pulling back from sharing and embracing spiritual guidance instead
 [7:58] - Battling isolation, a smear campaign, and staying grounded in my truth
 [9:44] - Trusting in karmic justice and letting go of revenge
 [11:15] - Reaffirming my mission to inspire and uplift others through this podcast

Links & Resources:

Be sure to follow, share, and leave a comment if this show resonates with you! Send me a message at podpage.com/themusicoflife to share your experiences, or to leave a comment. I'd love to feature it in a future episode.

Transcript

Caryn Portnoy: 0:02

Karen, hi everyone, and welcome to the music of Life. I'm your host. Karen Portnoy, before I get into this episode, please comment, ask questions, share some of your experiences, and don't forget to subscribe. Hi everyone. Came across a reel that really spoke to me. I wanted to share it with you because it, of course, had a deeper meaning to me that I wanted to get into in this episode. It was between a father and a young son. I don't know how old the son was, but it was a young child. So the father said, What do you want to be when you grow up? And the son said, kind Isn't it odd, we can only see our outsides, but nearly everything happens on the inside. What's the bravest thing you've ever said? And the father replied, help asking for it isn't giving up. It's refusing to give up. Tears fall for a reason, and they're your strength, not weakness. So the son said, I think you believe in me more than I do. And the father said, Life is difficult, but you are loved. You are so loved and important. You bring to this world things that no one else can our mission is to inspire and improve people's lives. So as I was listening to this, it really brought me back to the crux of my divorce, where I was really at the lowest of the low. I was really at the deepest depths of despair, and I could not have gone any lower. So this was like the worst of the worst of it for me, I'm going to say it was maybe a year and a half in out of three years. And when there are catastrophic things that happen in your life, whether it's a toxic divorce, whether it's an illness of yourself or a close loved one, the death of somebody close to you, things like that, where, like you really, really need help, and need to lean on someone and reach out. But you know, who are you reaching out to when you think about it, because, unless somebody has been through exactly what you're going through, which is impossible, they can't really help you, because they're not coming from a place of understanding of where you're at. So they'll give you their best shot, their best advice based on what they went through, but I don't know how much that's really going to help you. So in my case, I needed somebody higher than me, somebody who was more equipped than me, who understood exactly what I was going through. And for me, that was God. So I reached out, I called out to God. And so this reel that I just read really resonated with me, because it might as well have been the conversation I had with God myself, and the exchange that we had, you know, in my spirit and stuff. So, you know, I just felt like I was in over my head. Is basically what it came down to was, you know, in terms of despair and I needed the comfort and the guidance and the strength and the will and all the things that I needed to push forward, and I needed the strength to help myself get out of this state of despair that was just overwhelming for me. So God heard my call. We you know, I felt that he spoke to me in my spirit, and I was able to understand how he was guiding me, and I realized that he wasn't doing this to break me. He was doing this so that I would gain strength and resilience and courage and bravery and all those things that I needed to to survive. This was really what it was. So I also hosted on, I believe it was Tiktok the other day about, you know, being really careful about who you who you turn to for advice or input or perspective or whatever. Because really and truly people come from their own inner wounds and traumas and inner child and limited beliefs and and negative mindsets and all these things that they learned and took in as in their own childhood, that shaped who they are today, too. So when you ask someone else for their opinion and input and all of that, you're getting that perspective from them through their lens, through their filter. So they don't always, they can't always advise us or talk to us from an altruistic place where there are 1,000% looking out for our best interests. And they're looking to help our highest good like that's that's not where they can come from, because they have their own filter that they're speaking to you from. So I must have been acutely aware of this, as I was, you know, trying to pull myself out of hell through my divorce, but at the same time, I didn't know where else to go. I didn't know who else to go to. Yeah, I have my therapist and yeah, I have, you know, other divorce friends who went through their situations, but no two divorces are the same, so it's really hard to lean on other people to tell you what to do when their experience was very different than yours. So while I know that everyone has good intentions and everyone wants the best and wants to be able to help, it's nearly impossible to unless it's, you know, the same situation otherwise, how can anyone understand truly and advice and input and all of that is, it's not a one size fits all. So at some point during my divorce, I stopped really talking about, you know, the day to day, I had a couple of close friends that I spoke to on the regular, but I had to really pull it back, because it's hard to explain everything that you're dealing with to somebody who just doesn't get it, who just doesn't understand, and it's not their fault, it's just that they didn't go through that themselves. So it was, it was necessary for me to turn to God, because there really was no other support. My ex husband was out to destroy me on every level, every possible level, and launched a massive smear campaign against me. You know, from all of our friends, our entire community, his family and our daughter. So it was massive, and I was wildly isolated, shunned and ostracized. So, you know, how do you get advice from someone about that? Except I turned within a lot. I consider myself highly emotionally intelligent and capable and intuitive and a lot of things once I started my healing journey, I, you know, really mastered a lot of skills in self reflection and self actualization and just learning new things while I was healing. But really and truly, I mean, God led the way for me, and I was open, I was receptive, I was I was willing to surrender everything I had for his help and his guidance and and that's what I got. I got amazing strength and resilience, and I fought back, and I, you know, did everything that I could to not break, to not have my ex crush my spirit and for him not to close my heart. I was not going to lose my essence. I was not going to lose who I was because he wanted to crush me so badly. And even though, in the short term, he thinks that he, quote, unquote, won, because that's all he was after. Was winning. I'm in it for the long game, not the short game. So you know, I'm and when I say I'm in it for the long game, that doesn't mean that I'm seeking revenge or I'm trying to issue his karma or trying to stoop to his level and retaliate in some way that has never been my MO throughout this entire divorce and after so, you know, I get what His mission is, and you know, he manipulated the legal system and finances and everything else to serve Him. And you know, anybody looking from the outside in might say that he won, but again, I'm in it for the long game and and I have got on my side, so I don't have to retaliate. I don't have to stoop to his level. I don't have to manipulate any systems or anything else, or anyone else I am, just true to who I am. I don't wish bad on him. I'm not trying to, like, you know, do anything to hurt him, even though I certainly feel very deserving of that. But that's not my character, and it's not my personality, and that's not who I am. You if anyone who knew me ever stepped back to really think about who I am as a person and what they know of me or what they knew of me, I would I would really think that, if they're smart, they would realize that whatever he said about me doesn't add up. Who they knew I was. But, you know, that's water under the bridge. They made their choice. They chose a side, or whatever it is, and, and I've, I've been long gone from them, so, you know, it's, it's fine. I guess I'm just trying to describe the dynamics and stuff. But you know, look, I have God on my side, that's all I care about at this point. It's like I would not have made it out otherwise. Put it that way, and I'm very clear about that, and I'm very grateful and humbled by my relationship with God, because I take it very seriously. I don't play about him. I know he doesn't play about me too. I know I will get my karmic justice out of this whole situation, and it's not up to me to serve my ex husband his karma. That's up to God to figure out, and I'm out of that so I can sleep at night. My conscience is completely clear, and I'm just following the path that I'm meant to be on and and that's it. I'm as authentic as I could possibly be, I think, on this, on this podcast and also on social media, I'm as vulnerable as I can be, too. So I'm good. I have no questions about my what I'm doing and how I'm behaving or anything like that. Like I said on Episode One, I'm I am doing this podcast so that I can help and inspire other people who are going through something similar. That's all my MO is about this. I want to help raise humanity. I want to help heal people. And I wish that I had someone like me while I was going through my divorce, I did not, but my mission is to really be there for other people. So I always welcome questions, comments, feedback. You know, on this podcast, you can reach me at my website, which is pod page.com/the, music of life. My social media platforms will be on there too. So you can leave a comment, you can write a review. If you're interested, you can reach me on any of the social platforms. And I just want to thank you all for listening and for sticking with this podcast. I hope you get something out of it. If it's something that you think someone else in your life could benefit from I'd really appreciate you sharing it with them. I guess that's it for this week. So thanks again, and I will see you next week. Please join me every Thursday for a new episode. You can reach me at my website, which is pod page.com/the, music of life, and you can find all of my social media platforms on my website, so that would be Instagram, Tiktok and Facebook. Thanks again for listening. I'll catch you next time you.