“I mean, what kind of cult do they have going on up there?”

“A wilderness retreat? In the woods? For $6,000?”

And okay, confession three - I would harshly judge the celebrities that raved about Hoffman. I mean… no offense, but how can you say some woo woo retreat changed your life when you’re still making unhinged comments to contestants as a Judge on American Idol and, let’s be real, appearing to have a messy personal life publicly?

Then, my life imploded. And suddenly, my own personal life felt as messy as those I’d read about in TMZ headlines.

In December 2024, I left my husband. With two dogs, no job, and absolutely no idea what I was doing in life, I was humiliated. I tried my absolute hardest to pick myself up to no avail. I felt like I was dramatically unprepared for how life and identity-shifting divorce would feel, and with each day I fell deeper into depression. By December 2025, I was suicidal. With no real-life community, and no family support (my divorce forced me to face a lot of toxic relationships in my life, something I’m not ready to open up about but will soon), I called my aunt in a crisis, too terrified to call 988 for fear that the authorities would be called. As some of you may know, my father committed suicide. I felt deep shame in the prospect of following in his footsteps. If I hadn’t had the experience of being a child of suicide, I’m not sure I’d be here, writing this today. For the first time, I empathized with my father’s pain. I fully understood his grief. I felt my resentments melt away as I contemplated living a hopeless, listless life with no meaning. Deep down, I knew this wasn’t my destiny. I knew that I wanted something to live for.

Which is how my aunt saved my life. One of my few family members that fully understood me (I was always marked as the “black sheep” of the family), she was the only person who felt safe enough to confess this to without spinning me further into a crisis.

I told her everything. How I didn’t want to live anymore. How I was drowning. How I felt like I didn’t have the skills to pick myself up anymore. I told her how my shame and self-hatred was eating me alive. How my thoughts wouldn’t turn off. I told her I just wanted silence.

“It’s time to be the mother you always needed,” she told me firmly, yet gently. “You get to be your own safe parent. You get to talk to yourself and be gentle to yourself in the way you always needed. You don’t have to do this. You can start over, right now.”

This advice saved my life. I took all of December 2025 vowing to leave the pain of the past behind. I implemented as many tools, and as much self-help as I could. I researched inner-child healing and modalities that would help me get on track.

Over and over again, I kept seeing the Hoffman Process.

“That woo woo celebrity retreat again?” I rolled my eyes and kept looking. Until Hoffman became hard to ignore. I swear everywhere I’d look, it would pop up again. Influencer mention! Podcast mention! Google search! Even my books started to conspire against me. Finding out my favorite author was a Hoffman graduate? Of course!

January 2026 started pretty rocky. I went to visit Austin, TX - a place that felt like a great fresh start to tour homes - and everything that could’ve gone wrong, did.

I got terribly ill and stuck in an elevator, where I had a panic attack so bad I saw my life flash before my eyes. Specifically, I saw how much life I wasted. How I self-isolated myself. How I was too scared to experience everything. How my anxious thoughts kept me from so much.

“Every time I try to pick myself up and try to walk one step forward, I feel like the universe is kicking me down the stairs,” I said to the EMT as he worked to get my heart rate down. Calling 911 because you can’t breathe in front of new friends is a humiliation ritual I wouldn’t recommend.

It was in Austin that I applied to Hoffman. I had nothing to lose. It felt like a last step that I was finally surrendering to. I was radically honest on my application, at the worst mental place I’d ever been. I talked about how I was scared I had no identity, no soul. I talked about how I didn’t want to live anymore. I talked about how my divorce was radically disorienting me, how I was so confused that something my choice could destabilize me to the point that I no longer wanted to walk the earth.

Within 30 minutes, I got a call from a Hoffman admissions counselor. A spot opened at Hoffman Canada. There was a scholarship, and I could go if I was ready.

Then I got another call: my dog was ill and I was needed at home immediately.

AGAIN!? It felt like a cosmic joke at this point, as I spent $2,000 rushing home to California and sitting in the vet emergency room with her. How could I ever swing a week off, a week at Hoffman, when I could barely go out of town without my life falling apart?

I resigned myself to not going to Hoffman, and thanked the counselor for the consideration, but clearly it wasn’t meant to be.

“Well hey! You got a scholarship, we’ll honor that. What about August 2026 in the Bay Area? That’s closer to home, right? I see a few spots. That’s in 7 months. You can think about it and let me know if you change your mind.”

I signed up, convinced I wouldn’t go through with it. But I made the commitment, which felt like the first step to getting my life on the right road. And slowly but surely, my life got better. I got a job that perfectly aligned with all of my experiences. It was in Orange County, a place I had always wanted to plant roots but never thought I’d actually be able to swing. I found my dream apartment, walking distance from the beach and so peaceful for my dogs and me. All the momentum and self-work I had been building in 2025 started to pay off. I couldn’t believe it! I even met the man of my dreams within 8 weeks of moving to Orange County.

I will never forget seeing his face for the first time, almost feeling a sense of recognition as his big smile approached me on our first date.

“It’s him!” I felt my heart jump as he wrapped me in a hug. “All of this happened so you could meet him!”

My life took a radical turn for the better as August rolled around, but as happens in life - the magic of my new life began to wear off. My job got incredibly stressful, I found limited time to focus on my own social media pursuits - something I had a clear goal and intention for. I felt myself too busy to leave the house, or foster any time for making friends or taking care of myself. I started to worry old relationship patterns were returning. My first relationship after my divorce, I felt old codependency patterns start to return. I found myself thinking about my boyfriend all the time, constantly worrying (I want to make clear, this was self-imposed and had nothing to do with my boyfriend’s behavior. He has shown me nothing but pure love, gentleness, and care.). I realized I had developed an anxious/preoccupied attachment type through the trauma of a COVID marriage. That scared me.

Am I too much? Am I going to sabotage this? Did I say the wrong thing? When is he going to realize he’s too good for me? What if I’m not as cool and pretty as the other girls he could date. This man took me swimming in the ocean, an experience I’ve always wanted to have, and I spiraled with embarrassment and shame that I couldn’t navigate the waves with ease - having not gone to the beach until my adult life (my parents never took us). Instead of experiencing joy for new experiences, I was plagued with the shame and embarrassment of my skills deficits.

Just some insights into how my brain operated pre-Hoffman - I’d make a mistake and spiral. I said something too harshly! I was late. I came on too strong. I started to beat myself up over the smallest things, terrified about losing him. Things were too good, so something had to go wrong. When was the other shoe going to drop?

I realized it was time. I was going to Hoffman.

My toxic patterns were not controlling my life at this point, but they were present. Not in crisis and yet having trouble navigating my own toxic thoughts and patterns, I realized that I was the most open and receptive to the process that I’d ever be. I felt financially, mentally and emotionally steady enough to take time for myself.

I was no longer in survival mode, but still surviving rather than thriving.

As I flew to the Bay Area, I started to think about the reasons I signed up for Hoffman and what I was hoping to get out of it. I’ve always felt like an observer in life, rather than a participant. I wanted to fully embrace every moment, not constantly live in my head. I was sick of always bracing myself for impact, assuming the worst and feeling bittersweet even when things were good. I wanted to be the mom that I knew I had the potential to be, and stop being terrified that I was going to screw my kids up.

So. What ACTUALLY happens at the Hoffman Process?

First off, they don’t take your phone the first day. Or I should say, they don’t just take your phone. We were allowed to enjoy the property on Friday night before turning in our devices Saturday morning. But it’s not only the phones. You also aren’t permitted to read any books, pray, meditate, or do any cardio exercise.

The phone was surprisingly easy to turn in, but no prayer or meditation was surprisingly emotional for me. These two things felt like anchors in my life. The only things keeping me grounded while everything was falling apart around me. I was told over and over again, “Just trust the process.”

So I trusted the process.

Being offline for a week was absolutely critical to fully integrating and absorbing Hoffman’s learnings. I’m also thankful I didn’t pre-plan, or pre-schedule any content. I was there to break my anxiety loop, and I knew I’d be worrying about how the scheduled content performed if I posted (sorry for missing a week here!). I found that my biggest worry was that catastrophizing mental loop. Things were too quiet. I hadn’t heard from my dog sitter. My friends, my family! I remembered that they had Hoffman’s number. They could reach me if there was an emergency. I could take this one day at a time.

One day at a time is how I recommend approaching Hoffman. The days are extremely long (7:15am to lights out at 10pm), and extremely mentally, physically, and emotionally taxing. I don’t know if I knew the stamina required to get through the week I would’ve done it. I’m a homebody. An introvert! Fourteen-hour days in constant communication with strangers, with no alone time? And no phone? Yeah, I’m good.

I wouldn’t change a thing.

You learn so much about your mental strength and stamina in an environment like this. I noticed my attention span is much better than I give myself credit for, and I noticed all of my classmates were equally locked into the learnings. It’s so refreshing to learn new things as an adult, and I couldn’t believe how much I didn’t know.

Particularly about myself.

Hoffman is centered around love and compassion, for yourself and your parents. It’s about breaking the generational trauma and patterns that you learned in childhood that may be holding back or controlling your life. In my case, patterns like catastrophizing, hyper-vigilance, rumination, anxiety, and chaos felt heavily present, even when things were good.

I’ve had an incredible amount of chaos, trauma, and loss in my life - particularly in my childhood - so it only made sense that these patterns were second nature to me. I would find myself constantly worried that I wouldn’t be able to handle things, and couldn’t make sense of how other people were able to navigate daily life with ease.

@coralakeyMy honest review and experience at The Hoffman Process and everything I wish I knew before going into Hoffman. This was hands-down, the best experience of my life. Please let me know if you have any questions 💕 #hoffmanprocess #innerchild #healingjourney

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The video above outlines some of the exercises that help you recognize and heal from your childhood patterns, as well as what to prepare for if interested in Hoffman.

But for my Substack community, I wanted to share two key learnings that will stay with me for life.

Transference: “an unconscious psychological process where a person shifts feelings, expectations, or fears about a past significant relationship—often from childhood—onto someone in the present, such as a therapist, boss, or friend.”

One of the exercises that was perhaps the hardest to face and give to other students was accepting how much we judge others. Going into Hoffman, almost everyone had their guard up - even those receptive to the process. Those judgments and walls melt away as you go through the various modalities together, but especially the transference exercise.

As a content creator, I almost constantly feel inadequate. I feel like a mess. Never pretty enough, never organized enough, never stylish enough. I feel as though my success is directly tied to my lack of abilities, and it can be very discouraging.

To have multiple people tell me they judged me because they perceived me as having myself together, and presenting myself as polished, was extremely jarring. This reminded me that you truly never know what judgments you or others are making, that almost never have anything to do with the person - but your own personal biases.

I also judged others too! So much. To the point that I’m almost embarrassed about it leaving Hoffman. This exercise taught me to be more aware of my personal judgments, and especially when assigning those judgments to innocent people. I am much more present with how I perceive others, and judge them based off my interactions with them and those alone. I also don’t judge myself when transference happens. It’s an everyday occurrence! It will. I’m human. I will continue to be re-triggered and make mistakes. But I now have the tools to navigate when it happens. This exercise truly taught me I am no better than anyone, I am no worse than anyone. We all have a collection of experiences that cloud our perspectives, and you can’t shift your behavior based on inaccurate judgments.

Something else I wasn’t expecting was truly forgiving my parents and myself for my past mistakes. Vindictiveness is a huge theme at Hoffman. Living with a chip on my shoulder, using revenge as a propellant to make myself more successful, and using my hardships to fuel me felt innocent enough. As long as it didn’t hurt me, I could hold as much vindictiveness in my heart as I wanted. I didn’t even know it was there. I was so used to living inauthentically to myself. I constantly felt overexposed on social media. Posting videos about my divorce that I no longer wanted to talk about. I felt like I owed people rawness and authenticity, convincing myself that this content would serve a greater good if it helped one person.

By living out of alignment, I was being vindictive toward myself.

There are so many other examples in my life that I could share, but it truly took my breath away to realize how much vindictiveness controlled me. I know my views may suffer, and I know my content may take a hit, but I no longer feel the need to overexpose my personal life and happiness at the expense of myself.

I was also so vindictive toward my parents. I was so angry at them. I blamed them for holding me back, for not living my life or being able to enjoy it. I mourned my parents for the first time at Hoffman. I forgave them for the mistakes they’ve made. And unfortunately, something terrifying came out of this.

I recognized my mother’s patterns in myself.

I found myself instantly terrified. How could I judge my own mom, and be so critical of the mistakes she made - when I find myself repeating those behaviors in an effort to avoid these things? In identifying the core of my anger, my sadness, and mourning my mother - I forgave her.

The biggest takeaway from Hoffman for me, though, is the forgiveness and compassion I can show myself. Hoffman gave me a robust vocabulary to identify and recognize my patterns, and the tools to heal from them. They also set students up for success for life through resources, community groups, and additional trainings. For the first time in my life, I felt my brain turn off. I had no anxiety spirals. No toxic thoughts. No monkey mind pulling the puppet strings.

We all have a dark side, but Hoffman teaches you to acknowledge it. The darkness will always be there, it’s a part of the human experience. But your strength, resilience, and human spirit are much stronger. You can choose the life you live. You are responsible for it.

I learned a quote from one of my teachers that really stuck with me.

“Joy is the master emotion. But first, she has to feed her children.” - Marianne Williamson.

This quote so beautifully summarizes the Hoffman experience. Joy is a state we are all seeking, but joy isn’t possible without addressing our most basic needs. Grief, heartache, trauma. These are the things we have. If we continue to ignore them, we will never really be able to choose joy.

And so I honor the dark parts of my past. I know they aren’t me. They don’t define me. But they happened. I addressed them. I will continue to address them.

And above all, I will choose joy.

Maybe that’s what I was really looking for when I went to Hoffman. I wanted to stop waiting for the other shoe to drop. I wanted to stop observing my own life from the sidelines and actually participate in it. I wanted to be able to experience something good without immediately wondering when it would be taken away. And I wanted to fully enjoy my life, my relationship, and the man I love without constantly wondering if I was enough for him. I feel like an equal in my relationship now, rather than someone waiting to be found out or left behind. I love myself. I love my inner child. I no longer let shame own me.

I’m still going to have hard days. I’m still going to get triggered, make mistakes, judge people, and fall back into old patterns. But now I know how to recognize them, and I know I have a choice in what I do next. I can respond. I don’t have to react. I can meet life as a well resourced adult. I can do this.

Maybe that’s what choosing joy actually means. Not ignoring the darkness, but refusing to let it keep me from living.

Thank you Hoffman, for the best experience of my life.

until next time.

x, cora

Part of that happiness was meeting my boyfriend.

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I felt an immense sense of peace wash over me.

I saw my future.

I was joyfully happy. In a beautiful home, with a husband who loved me gently and well. Our children were cozy, safe, and content. My two dogs lay at my feet, not tucked under the covers trying to comfort me, but resting peacefully.

The vision lasted only a few seconds, but it was enough. I didn’t know how I would get there. I didn’t know how many times I would question my decision, grieve what I was leaving behind, or wonder if I’d made the biggest mistake of my life. As many of you know, the year that followed brought me to my knees more than once.

But every time I felt tempted to turn around, I returned to that moment. I borrowed hope from a version of myself that already existed somewhere ahead of me. That vision became my north star, guiding me through a year that asked me to let go of everything familiar before I could build something better.

A few months later, I packed up my life and moved to Orange County. Like many newly divorced women, I downloaded Hinge.

I will never forget the moment I saw my (now) boyfriend for the first time. His texts were brief, matter-of-fact, and almost completely devoid of emojis or exclamation points, so I’d pictured someone much more reserved. I was wholly unprepared for the golden retriever of a man who walked toward me wearing the easiest smile I’d ever seen.

There was something about him I still struggle to explain. It wasn’t butterflies or fireworks. It was recognition. A quiet, golden warmth that disarmed me before he’d even said hello. I remember thinking, almost against my own will, Oh. There you are.

I’d spent my whole life rolling my eyes at clichés like love at first sight. I thought they were stories people told themselves after the fact. But standing there, watching him walk toward me, I remembered the vision I’d had the night I left my marriage. It was the same feeling. The same steady, peaceful energy. Before we even sat down, some part of me knew I had finally met the man I’d seen all those months before.

Looking back, I don’t think meeting him was luck. It came from approaching dating with far more intention than I ever had before. After plenty of trial and error, I found a way to use Hinge that attracted better matches, filtered out the wrong people early, and ultimately led me to the man I’d seen in that vision. If you’re curious about exactly how I did it, here’s the framework I followed.

Here is the EXACT Hinge profile that introduced me to my dream man (and why I think it worked).

Before we talk about prompts, photos, or algorithms, I want to tell you the most important thing I did, because it had nothing to do with Hinge. I genuinely believed a good man was out there, and I believed I was ready to meet him. Dating apps are just a vessel. The energy you bring into them is what determines the kind of people you’re willing to entertain, the standards you’ll uphold, and whether you’ll recognize something healthy when it finally arrives. You can have the perfect profile in the world, but if you’re dating from fear, scarcity, or the belief that all the good ones are taken, you’ll unknowingly build a life that confirms exactly that.

Once I had that foundation, every decision I made on Hinge became intentional. I wasn’t trying to convince the largest number of men to like me. I was trying to make it as easy as possible for the right man to recognize me, and just as easy for the wrong ones to keep scrolling. Every photo, every prompt, every detail had a purpose. Here’s exactly how I thought through each one.

The first thing I optimized for was expectation. I wanted the person sitting across from me to feel pleasantly surprised when I walked into the restaurant. That’s why I chose photos that looked like me on an average day instead of the single best picture ever taken of me. I included full-body photos, I avoided group pictures, and I made sure someone could get a genuine sense of who they’d be meeting. Attraction isn’t just about looking good—it’s about trust. Starting a relationship by exceeding someone’s expectations is a much stronger foundation than asking them to overlook the gap between your profile and reality.

The second thing I thought about was information. Every single thing on your profile should earn its place. Does someone need to know this before asking you on a date, or is it better discovered over dinner? My political views mattered because they immediately filtered out people I wasn’t compatible with. My dogs mattered because they’re a huge part of my everyday life. But I didn’t lead with the fact that I was divorced, because that’s a conversation, not a headline. On the other hand, I intentionally simplified my job title to “marketing manager.” It wasn’t dishonest—I do work in marketing—but it prevented people from making assumptions about me as a content creator before they’d even met me. You don’t owe strangers every chapter of your story before they’ve earned a seat at the table.

Finally, I made every prompt do more than one job. Instead of saying, “I want kids” or “I love animals,” I talked about my dream of owning a hobby farm. That one answer communicated my values, the kind of life I wanted to build, and even the kind of partner I’d be compatible with. The best prompts don’t tell people who you are—they let the right person recognize themselves in your future. Every answer should either spark a conversation, filter for compatibility, or paint a picture of the life you’re inviting someone into. If it doesn’t do at least one of those things, it’s taking up valuable real estate.

If you’re reading this with a broken heart, convinced you’ve missed your chance, I want you to borrow my vision until you can believe in your own. Somewhere, there is a version of your life that feels impossibly far away today. A home that feels peaceful. A relationship where love isn’t something you have to earn. Someone whose presence calms your nervous system instead of activating it. You don’t have to know when they’ll arrive or exactly how you’ll meet them. You only have to become someone willing to believe they’re still possible.

Hinge didn’t change my life. Healing did. Hinge was simply the door I walked through once I was finally ready to let someone good find me. So if you’ve been waiting to download the app until you lose ten pounds, until your divorce is a little further behind you, until you feel a little less scared, let this be your sign. There isn’t a perfect moment when love suddenly becomes available to you. There is only the moment you decide to stop assuming the best part of your story has already been written. Mine hadn’t. And I have a feeling yours hasn’t either.

until next week.

x,

cora

I saw the end of my life. I had wasted it. I had spent my potential building other people’s dreams, especially my husband’s, while abandoning my own. It wasn’t surprising that it haunted me. Every move, every decision, had been shaped around what he wanted.

I was living completely out of alignment with myself. Most days, I barely left the house. Depression had shrunk my world to four walls. I wanted out. I wanted a different life. But the idea that I could change course felt impossible.

I had just turned 30, the age when everyone starts asking if you’re going to freeze your eggs. Looking back, 30 seems impossibly young. But when everyone around you appears to be checking off the milestones you once imagined for yourself, comparison feels almost inevitable.

Then, out of nowhere, my life imploded. The cracks I’d spent years ignoring finally split wide open. In the aftermath, the nightmare changed. I wasn’t just afraid of wasting my life anymore. I was haunted by a new question: you’ve already blown it up. Are you really going to waste this second chance too?

For the first year, I did.

Divorce was brutal, far harder than I could have imagined, as I’ve written about in earlier posts. Survival took everything I had. There wasn’t much left for rebuilding.

Then, the veil lifted.

Life became rich in ways I hadn’t thought possible. I was finally making a good living as a content creator, doing work that energized me instead of draining me. My dogs were safe and happy in our little beach apartment. I had found a relationship that felt healthy, steady, and aligned with the life I want to build.

From the outside, I had everything I used to dream about.

So why do I feel burned out?

This is the part of the story I don’t have a neat ending for.

I’m a full-time creator. I work a full-time job for an entrepreneur. I also create content for other brands. That’s a 60 hour work week. On top of that I just moved to Orange County. I want to fully enjoy life here. I want to explore, to have time for friends. To enjoy my relationship. And I’m finding myself struggling to fit it all in, and excel in any of those areas.

It feels like constant context-switching between versions of myself that never fully recover, and I don’t have an answer for it. I just feel like I’m failing all the time, and that everyone else has a system figured out that I don’t seem to.

By the end of the workday, I’m drained. The part of me that wants to create for myself, to grow my own work, to experiment and take risks, is usually gone. What’s left is whatever energy is required to meet obligations, not build anything beyond them.

At home, the responsibility doesn’t distribute itself. The mental load of caring for my two dogs sits entirely with me. When something goes wrong, there is no backup system. It all lands on the same already stretched mind.

And then there is comparison. If I step away from social media for scroll breaks, I feel like I’m disappearing from my own field. If I stay on it, I spiral in the comparison anxiety loop. Everyone else looks faster, clearer, more consistent. I swing between feeling behind and feeling overwhelmed, with no stable middle ground.

What I’m left with is a low, constant anxiety that I’m failing. And that I just don’t have the talent, the hustle, the ambition to do it all. I spent years dreaming about this life. Now that I’m here, I try to squeeze every drop out of it. Every opportunity feels like one I can’t afford to miss because I know what it felt like to live a life that wasn’t mine.

I’m surrounded by brilliant people who seem to do it all. They publish more. Build faster. Launch bigger things. They keep showing up with energy that feels endless. I catch myself wondering if I simply don’t have what they have. Not talent, but stamina. The ability to hustle without breaking down.

Maybe that’s insecurity talking. Maybe it’s comparison. Maybe it’s the internet, where everyone else’s output is visible and my capacity feels painfully finite.

There’s a line often attributed to Michelle Obama that has been echoing in my head: you can have it all, just not all at once.

I think I’ve been trying to have it all at once.

A business. A relationship. Friendships. Health. My dogs. Writing. Filming. Traveling. Being present. Building a future after spending so many years feeling like I had lost my past. And with no help.

Somewhere along the way, I started believing that if I slowed down, I would lose everything I had worked so hard to build.

I don’t know if I’m built for hustle culture. Maybe I never was. What I do know is that I don’t want to build another life that looks successful from the outside while quietly draining me on the inside.

What I don’t always say out loud is the fear that sits underneath everything else.

That there may be something in me that is simply less than what this life requires. Not less in desire, but in capacity. As if others were given a wider span to hold things, and I was not.

It is a hard thought to admit, because it has no clear shape. Only the feeling of reaching my limit sooner than I expected to.

And when I think about motherhood, it becomes harder to ignore.

What I don’t always say is how scared I am to admit this out loud.

I thought I could handle divorce on my own. I really did. I told myself I was strong enough, capable enough, resilient enough to carry it privately and still come out whole on the other side. And in many ways I did survive it. But it was harder than I ever expected. Harder on my mind, my body, my sense of self. It took more out of me than I knew I had to give.

And now I find myself looking toward the idea of motherhood, of building a family, of expanding my life in that direction, and I don’t feel that same confidence anymore.

Not because I don’t want it. I do. I want love. I want a family. I want a life that feels shared instead of carried alone. But because I am already so aware of the mental load I carry just living my own life, I don’t know how to imagine adding more to it without something breaking.

There is a version of me that still believes I can grow into all of this. And there is another version that is quietly afraid I have already reached my edge.

What makes it harder is the feeling of time moving anyway. That life is still passing, still asking for decisions, still asking for more. Only now it feels like the pressure is different. Not just to build a life, but to excel at it. To be a successful creator, a present partner, a stable person, someone who keeps up, someone who does not fall behind in any direction.

You were given a second chance. Now what are you going to do about it?

The new nightmare constantly playing in my head.

I don’t know how to do all of it without losing myself somewhere in the process.

I don’t have a conclusion here. Only honesty.

If you’ve felt this too, I would genuinely love to hear how you’ve navigated it.

Starting this week, my Substack moves to Saturdays.

Thank you for your patience with me as I write through this in real time, without having all the answers yet. I am still trying to understand what I can carry, what I can’t, and what it means to build a life that doesn’t ask me to constantly exceed myself.

until next week.

x,

cora

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https://www.instagram.com/reel/DX0OjUeJcin/

Most of you have been here through the divorce. You’ve seen the harder posts, the ones I almost didn’t publish, and you’ve shown up in the comments and in my inbox in ways that genuinely carried me through some of the worst of it. I don’t take that lightly and I never will. So when the psychic told me I would meet the love of my life by June, I couldn’t take her seriously. Because of how far away that felt from where I was sitting. Through these posts, I hope I’ve shed a light on how challenging my mental space was following my divorce. At times, I didn’t think I would be able to continue walking the planet let alone resume normal thoughts of dating. How was I supposed to even contemplate building a meaningful relationship when my life felt completely shut down. When any romantic interest I had was gone? The stress, heartache, and complete disorientation of my reality left me confused on good days… Even though I was so excited for the future, there was no way that was going to happen in my reality. It felt like I would meet someone in another life and it just wasn’t my destiny.

I had grown OK with this. When leaving my marriage, one of the scariest realities I had to face was that I may never meet someone. At 30 years old, we are told so many ridiculous statements about needing to freeze our eggs or that we are expiring. These messages started to seep into my subconscious to the point that I seriously believed I would be single forever. But that was something that felt powerful to me. Making decisions on my own 100% owning my life. Not having to answer to anyone? And yet, of course that made me sad.

Is it so bad to want a family? To want a partnership? To want true love and the mental load of life eased? Even though I had become comfortable with our reality it wasn’t something I willingly accepted.And fast forward to the last seven weeks living in Orange County and I’ve so many changes alone. And while most of them have been incredibly sweet, there have been so many times when I’ve wondered if the psychic was right. If someone was coming…

June is here. And she was right.

I did meet the love of my life. It’s me.

I want to be clear that I’m not saying that as a soft landing or a way of spinning something that didn’t happen into something that did. I mean it in the most literal, unglamorous, hard-earned way I know how to say it. Over the past year I have watched myself handle things I genuinely didn’t know I was capable of handling. I have made hard decisions and sat with the discomfort of them. I have been lonely and gotten through it. I have shown up for myself in moments where no one else was going to, and somewhere in the middle of all of that, I started to actually like who I am. Slowly, I started to become proud of myself, in the quiet, steady way where I’ll catch myself in a difficult moment and think that I’m proud of how I’m navigating it. That feeling is new for me, and I refuse to minimize it.

I also want to be honest with you about something because you’ve been here long enough to deserve that. There is someone new in my life.

I’ve been sitting with how to share that for a while now. There’s a tension that comes with having a space like this one, where so much of my inner life exists publicly, while also trying to protect something new and private. I haven’t wanted to talk about it before I understood what it was, and I’m still in the process of figuring out where the line is between sharing and oversharing when it comes to someone else’s life. What I can tell you is that it’s good. That it feels different in the ways I always hoped different could feel. And that going into it already knowing who I am and being solid in myself has changed the entire experience of it.

Which brings me to something I’ve been turning over for a while. This newsletter is called Diary of a Single Girl, and I am not, technically, single anymore. I’ve thought about what that means for this space, whether the name still fits, whether the premise changes. But the more I sat with it, the more I realized that this was never really about being single. It was about figuring out who I am when I’m not organizing my identity around someone else. It was about the process of that, the diary part, the honest part, the still figuring it out part. That doesn’t go away because someone is in my life now. If anything, the whole point of everything I’ve written here is that I am not going back to building my sense of self around a relationship. Whatever this is, whatever comes next, I am going into it as a whole person who knows herself, and I think that’s worth more than anything I could have been told by a psychic.

Although, to her credit, she called it.

Even though things are early… As this is my first relationship after my divorce, I’ve been sitting in how I feel about it. What I didn’t expect, and what I’ve been sitting with the most, is how terrifying it was to actually let someone in after everything I’ve been through. The first relationship after a divorce carries a weight that I don’t think anyone warns you about. You are not just opening up to a new person, you are doing it with full knowledge of how badly it can go, how much it costs you, how long the aftermath can last. I was scared in a way that felt almost paralyzing at times. Scared to want something, scared to say I wanted it, scared to give my heart to someone when I had only just finished putting it back together.

Life is genuinely too short to spend it guarding myself from the possibility of being hurt. I have already been heartbroken. I have already survived it. And I would rather give everything I have to something real than let every hard thing I’ve lived through turn me into someone who holds back. If this doesn’t work out, if my heart gets broken again, I will not look back and wish I had loved less carefully. I will be proud of myself for showing up fully, for refusing to let my history make me smaller, for not letting pain be the thing that wins.

And I have a feeling… It’s going to be good.

X, Cora

I catch myself being a big dope more often than I’d like to admit. The second feelings are involved, logic goes out the window even if I tell myself I’m too logical to see the best in a man.

Why? Why does this happen? Dating leaves me feeling like a big dope more often than I care to admit.

I knew I wanted to change the vicious cycle of feeling over-exposed sharing my heart with a man only to have him stomp on it and make me feel like an idiot weeks later. So what did I do differently this time?

Instead of trying to get men to like me, I studied the way they behave in dating. Call me an anthropologist but hell, if they’re going to use us why shouldn’t I get something out of this too. I noticed certain patterns of behavior in men, implemented them myself and the results were pretty staggering.

I stopped getting hung up on them.

I had more time for the things that are important to me.

I had much better self esteem.

And they became the ones hung up on ME. Not the other way around.

So, what is the exact formula men use to maintain their self worth, and have women hung up on their (more often than not) mediocrity?

I’ll tell you.

They have very strong routines and boundaries.

Men are not canceling their plans for women they are just getting to know. They like who they are. They like the lives they have built. If they commit to going to the gym every day at 6, they are going to the gym every day at 6. They will plan time with you around that, not instead of it. Their commitment to themselves comes first, and they do not waver on that.

If they already have plans, they keep them. A friend has a dinner planned, they are going. They are not dropping it last minute because something more appealing came up. There is a quiet consistency in that. Their life does not bend easily around novelty.

Unless they explicitly say you are exclusive, you are not. There is no reading between the lines or decoding vague emotional signals. Clarity is either spoken or it does not exist. Until then, they continue living exactly as they were before you arrived.

They do not sacrifice one area of their life to fit you in. They expect you to fit into the life they have already built. Work, health, friendships, and personal time are not negotiable pieces of their identity. They are not rearranging their foundation for something that has not yet proven it is permanent.

On the other side, women often enter situations with a different kind of flexibility. Girls’ nights get moved “just this once.” The gym plan turns into “I’ll go tomorrow.” A weekend that was supposed to be offline quietly becomes shaped around a text that might or might not come through.

There is also a subtle kind of self negotiation that happens early on. You tell yourself you are not changing anything, but your availability starts to widen in his direction. You are still living your life, technically, but with a small portion of it always kept open, just in case.

It rarely feels dramatic in the moment. It feels like being open, easy, adaptable. But over time, the structure shifts. Your plans become flexible while his remain fixed. Your calendar learns to wait.

And maybe that is the real contrast. Not that one person values the connection more than the other, but that one person enters it with an already defined life, and the other is still adjusting theirs around the possibility of one.

There is also something worth noting about what this does to a woman’s self esteem.

When you date in a way where your life stays intact, your sense of self stays intact too. You are not constantly negotiating your worth in real time. You are not measuring your value by how quickly someone replies, or whether they chose you over their pre-existing plans, or how much access you have to their attention on a given night.

Self esteem erodes quietly in the spaces where you repeatedly make yourself optional.

Canceling plans for someone you are still getting to know does not feel significant in the moment. It feels romantic, spontaneous, open. But over time, it can start to blur your internal hierarchy. Your life begins to sit slightly behind someone else’s availability. Your commitments become flexible while theirs remain fixed. And without noticing it, you start to treat your own time as something that can be moved, adjusted, or replaced.

Dating with stronger boundaries interrupts that pattern.

It keeps you anchored in your own routines, friendships, and responsibilities. It forces clarity earlier. It prevents the slow drift where you become someone who is always waiting, always available, always adjusting.

And interestingly, it does not make you less connected or less open. It actually makes attraction clearer. When you are not rearranging your life around uncertainty, you can see more easily who is willing to meet you in your existing one.

Over time, that changes something internally. You stop performing availability as a form of interest. You stop equating flexibility with value. You stay more rooted in your own life while still allowing someone to enter it, not replace it.

And self esteem, in that sense, is not built through confidence alone. It is built through pattern. Through repetition. Through showing yourself, over and over, that your life does not disappear when someone new appears in it.

I have noticed my self worth improve in a way that is not really dramatic, but steady.

It is not that I never catch myself slipping into old patterns. I do. There are still moments where I feel the pull to rearrange things, to be more available than I originally planned, to make space for someone before they have actually shown they deserve it. The difference now is that I notice it faster. I do not fully abandon myself in the process.

That small gap matters more than I expected. It is the difference between losing yourself in something and simply observing your old habits in real time.

Over time, that has changed how I feel about myself in a quiet but noticeable way. I trust my own time more. I take my own plans more seriously. I do not treat my life like something secondary to be adjusted around someone else’s mood or schedule.

And something interesting has happened alongside that.

Men respond differently to it.

When you are anchored in your own life, you stop overextending into uncertainty. You are present, but not waiting. Available, but not unstructured. Interested, but not orbiting. That creates a different dynamic. There is less confusion in it. Less ambiguity. People tend to meet you with more clarity when you are not constantly bending yourself into unclear situations.

I have noticed more effort, more consistency, more intentionality from the men I date when I stay in that state. Not because I am doing anything differently in a calculated sense, but because I am no longer making myself overly accessible to inconsistency.

There is a kind of respect that shows up when your life is visibly intact. When you are not reshaping it for someone who has not yet shown they are willing to meet you in it.

And maybe that is the core shift. Not that I am trying to get a different outcome, but that I am no longer abandoning my own structure in the process of seeing where something goes.

That alone has changed both how I feel, and how I am met.

Life after divorce is messy in ways I do not think you fully understand until you are in it. You are still the same person, just rebuilding in real time, often while making decisions you are not entirely confident in yet. It’s like I’m back in the old timeline of dating drivel, and yet layered with hardness that I wish I could shake. I still catch myself falling into old patterns, still learning where my edges are, still figuring out what is actually mine versus what I carried over from before.

But I am learning. Slowly, sometimes awkwardly, but honestly. And if there is anything I am taking from all of this, it is that self worth is not a fixed idea you arrive at. It is something you practice, over and over again, in small decisions that no one really sees. And if that means learning a thing or two from men so they don’t take me for a ride, I’ll take it.

x, cora

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“I also want to acknowledge something: your divorce and what you went through with that. I’m a psychologist and because divorce is common, it very often doesn’t get the credit it deserves for how truly horrific and devastating it can be to a life. When someone loses a spouse to death, they’re given a title - widow. And with that, they’re given the witnessing of grief that is necessary. Grief must be witnessed and acknowledged or it is the most isolating experience and takes so much longer to continue to move through life again, forward (not forgetting or moving on from them but you get it). Some divorces aren’t as dismantling, but even still, so many people suffer way more than is recognized. I’m not saying it’s the same as losing a partner to a death - I AM saying that it can still be so extremely painful and traumatic on multiple levels. It’s clear that you’ve been going through so much of this without sharing online (which doesn’t mean it’s been an isolating process for you because I don’t know how it’s been navigated in your real personal life), and it’s clear that it hit you very hard. Hypothalamic amenorrhea is, thankfully, reversible. But it does take effort and change. It’s also very common when the stress also contributes to significant weight loss/under nourishment. Restoring weight and caloric intake is a huge part of this. So I’m definitely interested in how you managed the glp-1 while also making sure you got yourself nourished properly and kept yourself at a healthy weight (not too low). I love glp-1’s effects on inflammation. Big life stressors like an awful divorce and the layers of grief that came with, I’m not surprised that it left you with HA. Although it’s less common than energy-deficit-FHA (functional hypothalamic amenorrhea), like being caused from being underweight or overexercising, “stress only” cases are still very real and well documented. I am so happy that you’ve gotten yourself to a place where your nervous system and hormones finally feels safe enough to support reproduction. Congratulations and here’s to an exciting new chapter.”

Even though I’ve been pretty open about chronicling my grief with divorce, I often catch myself saying diminishing my own experiences.

Well, I have friends who’ve been through worse. At least we didn’t have kids. At least there wasn’t physical abuse.

But there was grief. There was trauma. There was the comments from others that made me feel that my experience wasn’t that bad. There was cutting off a parent because their behavior was causing me harm during the worst pain of my life.

The body keeps score. And mine told me just how bad my grief was, even when I convinced myself otherwise.

@coralakeyTTC updates are back! My journey to becoming a mom is on again! Info about where I get mine can be found in my bio. This video is uncomfortable. I would not be posting this video if it wasn’t something I didn’t think could help women like me who tried everything for their fertility and hormonal health. Let me know if you have questions but it changed my life and I want to be transparent about this! #health #fertilityawareness #inflammation #beforeandafter #ttcjourney

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I recently shared the above video about my journey getting my health back on track after the trauma of my divorce. You can watch it to get a full timeline of how a GLP1 changed my health for the better, but I wanted to share more privately about the emotional aspect of this journey.

I tried to keep my TikTok on this subject around my experience getting my fertility back, but my health issues actually ran much deeper.

My body did not simply stop working. It responded to a period of my life that felt deeply unstable, even if from the outside it may not have looked that way.

At the time, I would not have described what I was doing as binge eating. I would have framed it as stress, or survival, or just a temporary phase. But when I look back honestly, I can see the pattern more clearly. There was a constant oscillation between trying to control everything and feeling like I had completely lost control. Food became one of the places where that tension showed up most visibly, because it was both a source of comfort and something I felt I needed to manage.

At the same time, I was navigating a kind of emotional upheaval that I did not yet have the language for. Cutting off my mom was not a single moment or decision, but a slow accumulation of realizations that eventually became impossible to ignore. It forced me to confront the fact that safety is not just about physical circumstances, but about how your body experiences the people closest to you. Even when you know you are making the right decision, your nervous system still registers the loss, the uncertainty, and the absence of something that once defined your world.

Layered on top of that was my divorce, which brought its own kind of grief and disorientation. It is difficult to explain what it feels like to lose two foundational relationships at the same time, even when those losses are necessary. There is a destabilization that happens internally, where your sense of identity, belonging, and predictability all shift at once. My life was changing in ways that were objectively correct for me, but my body did not experience those changes as clean or empowering. It experienced them as stress.

And my body responded accordingly.

Hypothalamic amenorrhea is often discussed in terms of calories, exercise, and weight, but for me it was inseparable from everything else I was carrying. It was not just about energy availability in a physical sense, but about whether my body felt safe enough to sustain normal function. Without that sense of safety, my system adapted by shutting down what it perceived as nonessential. My cycle disappeared, and with it went any sense of internal rhythm or consistency.

For a long time, I tried to approach this the way I had approached other challenges in my life, which was to apply more discipline, more structure, and more effort. I believed that if I could just find the right combination of behaviors, I could force my body back into balance. But the more I tried to control the outcome, the more disconnected I felt from the signals my body was trying to send me.

What shifted for me was not a single decision, but a gradual willingness to approach my health from a different perspective. Using a GLP-1 became part of that shift, not as a shortcut or a purely physical intervention, but as a way to create a more stable internal environment. It helped quiet the constant noise around food, the urgency and the swings between extremes, and allowed me to experience a sense of steadiness that I had not felt in a long time.

That steadiness changed the way I related to myself. It gave me space to notice what my body was doing without immediately trying to override it. It allowed me to rebuild trust in small, consistent ways, instead of relying on cycles of control and release.

There is a kind of empowerment in that process that is difficult to articulate because it is not dramatic or performative. It does not look like a transformation from the outside. It feels like a quiet return to yourself, where your body is no longer something you are constantly managing or negotiating with, but something you are actually in relationship with.

One of the most meaningful parts of this journey has been how it has reshaped the way I think about safety, not just for myself, but for my daughter. When I consider the kind of life I want to provide for her, it is less about specific outcomes and more about the environment she grows up in. I want her to feel a baseline sense of safety in her own body and in her relationships, so that she does not have to learn through disruption what it feels like to come back to herself.

That intention has become a guiding force for me. It reminds me that taking control of my health is not about perfection or aesthetics, but about creating stability, consistency, and trust, both internally and externally. It is about building a life where regulation is the norm rather than the exception.

Healing, for me, has not been about forcing my body to comply or chasing a specific version of wellness. It has been about understanding what my body was responding to in the first place, and then gradually creating the conditions where it no longer needs to protect me in the same way.

And that, more than anything, is what has allowed things to begin working again.

I’m burying the lead a bit here but another surprising aspect of this has been sex. Thinking of a future and the possibility of having a relationship, I had honestly convinced myself I was asexual because I just couldn’t connect with anyone.

I had to step away from dating for a period of time, not as a rule or a declaration, but because I noticed something in myself that I could not ignore, which was a complete lack of attraction to anyone I met.

It was not about the people in front of me, it was about the state my body was in. When your system is dysregulated and operating from a place of stress, desire is often one of the first things to go quiet, because it requires a sense of safety and openness that simply was not there for me at the time. Taking that pause allowed me to stop forcing connections that did not feel natural and to focus instead on restoring my own baseline. What has been surprising, and honestly grounding, is feeling that part of myself come back online as my health has stabilized, where attraction feels intuitive again rather than something I have to manufacture.

It has opened up a completely new chapter that I am still learning how to navigate, and I will share more about what it has been like to experience healthy, normal intimacy for the first time in my thirties, because that in itself has been its own kind of healing.

If there is anything this experience has taught me, it is that our bodies are not problems to solve but signals to understand, and when we start listening instead of overriding, things can begin to shift in ways that feel both steady and sustainable. This journey has been layered, imperfect, and still unfolding, and I know there is more I will continue to learn as I go. If you are navigating something similar, or even if your experience looks completely different, I would genuinely love to hear from you. Leave your questions, your thoughts, or even the parts of your story you are still trying to make sense of, and I will share more in future posts.

until next week.

x,

Cora

But this book is important. It explains so much of the quiet. The untangling. The storm. The rage. The quiet. The noise. The quiet. The quiet. The silence.

It allowed me to admit something I hadn’t fully let myself digest before. I wasn’t just divorced. I was abandoned. And really. So many women are. In a quieter way that is harder to explain and even harder to process. The kind of abandon in marriage that feels sinister. Sneaking up on you before a sneak attack of identity shifts and confusion sweep you away. Where your world shifts slowly enough that you start questioning your own interpretation of it.

What this book does exceptionally well is capture that feeling without overstating it.

The illusion of safety.

There is a specific kind of safety many women are taught to trust. We are taught to accept our roles as wives. As mothers. As the center and nervous system in the home. It creates a sense that what you have is stable simply because it exists.

It was almost self-righteous - how I felt watching my friends struggle on date after date, while I was snuggled in my marital home with my husband, glad I didn’t have to do that anymore. And then poof. It’s gone.

This book understands how fragile that can be.

It shows how something can feel secure while already beginning to unravel. In a way that requires hindsight to fully understand. And even then, you still don’t. The hindsight clouded by a search for answers you’ll never understand, and likely never get answers to.

One of the most accurate parts of Strangers is how it handles the small moments. The comments that feel slightly off. The interactions you move past quickly because they are not significant enough to confront. Not with your spouse.

But the people around you.

The book reflects how people process these moments in real life. You do not identify them as important in the moment. You recognize their weight afterward. When someone gives you a back-handed comment about siding with your husband. Or the trickle of unfollows on social media. The shift from in-laws, to the people who hate you the most.

What stayed with me most is how clearly it captures identity confusion.

It happens so gradually. You become more accommodating. You explain things away more easily. You prioritize maintaining stability over questioning it. And yet you feel like a grifter. A fraud. A terrible person who must have deserved it. You question your perceptions. “Was he always right?” Was I the villain in the story?

And eventually, you realize you have been adjusting to life, as your new self. And maybe, you are okay with it. Maybe you really like her. And maybe you find safety in that, too.

That gravity of divorce is sharp-edged, and the book does not try to soften it.

It is not triggering. It is clarifying. It brought me closure.

It reflects the experience of going through something destabilizing and then trying to make sense of it afterward. The questions that follow. How to radically accept a peace of yourself that can’t find peace.

Why does it still feel unresolved, and why am I supposed to be okay with this?

Divorce is one of the most stressful life events, and very few accurately describe it.

There is a tendency to talk about divorce in practical terms. Logistics, timelines, decisions. According to the Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale, divorce ranks among the highest stress life events, second only to the death of a spouse.

This was something I naively wasn’t prepared for. Divorce is not just the end of a relationship. It disrupts identity, routine, and a sense of stability all at once.

Why it is worth reading:

I think this is an important book for women in particular, not because it is alarming, but because it reinforces self-trust.

It captures what it feels like to question your own experience. And in doing so, it makes it easier to recognize those moments earlier, and to learn from them.

It is also a lesson in being a better friend. It is a book that builds empathy. What stayed with me most is how much divorce exposes your need for other people, and how often that need goes unmet. There is a quiet, daily unraveling that doesn’t announce itself, and without steady support, it can feel profoundly isolating. This book understands that. It shows how much it matters to have people who check in, who sit with you in the in-between, who resist the urge to offer easy fixes or polished advice. It makes a case for a kind of community that is attentive rather than performative.

Reading it made me think about the kind of neighbor, friend, and bystander I want to be. More present. More careful with my words. More willing to show up in small, consistent ways. Realizing that careful candor in language can be the difference between life and death. It asks something of you as a reader, which is what makes it important. It doesn’t just reflect the experience, it quietly insists that we do better by one another.

Divorce is often viewed as mutual or straightforward from the outside. This book shows how complex and disorienting it can be from the inside.

That perspective matters.

I did not expect to see my own experience reflected this clearly in a novel.

And having language for it changes something.

It brings peace, understanding, and closure. Maybe not for the marriage. But for myself. For Cora. For Belle. And whoever is reading it.

I hope it brings you peace, too.

x,

cora

I know what the whispers say.

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I Think I’m Happy. Which Is just slightly terrifying.

I moved to Orange County and my life is… good.

Like, suspiciously good.

Everything lined up in this weird, cinematic way where I kept waiting for something to go wrong and it just didn’t. I got the beachy cottage of my dreams. I’m meeting so many people. I go outside and see the sun like I’m a lizard (y’all know how I feel about lizard hour). I drink my little beverages. I have peace, which is new for me. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop…and it isn’t.

I’m happy. Really happy. Maybe for the first time.

Which would be great if my brain didn’t immediately go, “Okay, but when does it all fall apart?”

Because if you’ve been following along, you know this is not my baseline. My baseline has historically been chaos, depression, and the emotional equivalent of getting waterboarded by my own thoughts.

I built an entire personality around surviving things. And now that I’m not actively surviving something, I’m like… hello? What do I do with my hands?

I’m 31. I’m starting over after a divorce. I’ve been extremely open about how dark it got for me. There were long stretches where I genuinely did not want to be alive. In a quiet, scary, very real way. I found comfort in this darkness. In this reality.

Until it almost killed me. And I realized that a life in the dark may as well be hell.

So to now be in a place where I wake up and don’t feel that? Where my life actually feels cohesive? It’s everything I wanted.

I left hell, and I woke up in heaven.

So why am I so scared?

Like I’m holding something really beautiful and just waiting to drop it. The old voice saying it’s me. That it’s just a matter of time before I’m found out. That people see my personality and don’t like me. That I’m too weird. Too much for people. That I have to hide away again.

Especially when I’m alone.

That’s when my brain likes to get creative. Not in a fun, artistic way. Now that the dust has settled, I can feel how easy it would be to slip back into old patterns. The depression isn’t gone. It’s just… quiet right now. Which almost makes it more intimidating.

And then, because life has a sense of humor, we add dating into the mix.

I promised you dating updates, and boy do I have them!

I reconnected with someone from seven years ago. Seven. And for the first time in a while, I felt comfortable. I wanted to just go for it. Give it everything in me. Why not. And I was pleasantly surprised.

This man had saved our old messages. From SEVEN years ago.

Our first Hinge conversation. Our last texts. He remembered our dates.

I’m thinking, wow….this man was into me this whole time and didn’t even know it.

He comes in strong. It’s intense. It feels like picking up right where we left off. I get so excited. So unlike me as you’ve seen from above.

I’m like, okay, maybe this is my moment. Maybe this is the part where things are romantic and aligned and make sense. You know? Like everything else in my life?

And then he disappears. Just fully evaporates. Because he was hungover.

Amazing.

Then another guy schedules a FaceTime and flakes.

Another one cancels a date the morning of because he’s “not feeling his best,” which I now understand is a personality trait, not a temporary condition.

I am exhausted.

Not heartbroken. Not even that disappointed. Just… deeply, spiritually tired of flaky millennial men who think basic consistency is a personality upgrade.

For the first time, I feel like I have real cohesion. My environment is good. My habits are better. My brain is quieter. I’m proud of myself.

And the only area that feels off is dating.

Which is annoying, because I don’t want my happiness to hinge on that. I don’t want to outsource my self-worth to whether or not a man follows through on a FaceTime he scheduled himself? God forbid!

But I also can’t pretend it doesn’t affect me at all.

It’s this weird in-between where I’m grounded, but still human. Healed, but not numb. Hopeful, but also very aware of how quickly things can shift.

And if I’m being honest, as frustrating as these experiences have been, they did something important.

They made me feel something again.

After my divorce, it was like a switch turned off. I was so depressed, so disconnected, that the idea of being excited about someone felt impossible. And sex! Sex felt impossible. To feel actually, genuinely sexually attracted to a man again was…nice. Really nice!

And then, for a moment, I was excited again.

And that makes it all worth it.

That matters to me.

Even if it came wrapped in disappointment, it reminded me that I’m still capable of feeling hopeful. Of being open. Of wanting something. And that my heart is still soft, and open to receiving it.

So no, I don’t think the lesson here is “dating is terrible, never try again.”

Unfortunately.

I think the lesson is that I can be in a good place and still feel uncomfortable. I can be happy and still be scared. I can have a life that finally feels aligned and still worry that I’m going to mess it up.

And maybe that doesn’t mean something is wrong.

Maybe it just means I care.

Maybe this is what it feels like to have something to lose.

And instead of bracing for the moment it all falls apart, I’m trying, very slowly, to just be here while it’s good.

Which, for me, is actually the hardest part.

And hey, at least I got some lingerie out of it (who am I?!)

Until next time.

X, Cora

Took some time off as the last several posts have been cathartic, yet overwhelming to process.

I just wanted to take a moment and say thank you for your unwavering support.

This video was not easy to make, and will not be easy to watch. But I think the gravity of how painful divorce can feel is not easy to understand or process. I hope that if you know, someone going through it, you can be a lifeline. A small gesture of kindness, support, or a check-in can be the difference between feeling like you’re drowning and feeling like you’re starting to heal again.

From me to you. If you can relate, I hope you know that you’re not the only one.

More soon.

x,

Cora

Death is a pretty easy way to forgive someone. He died. What am I going to do? I can’t get closure now. I can’t get peace about his mindset and why he did it. I can imagine my dad as an almost angel because that’s what we’re supposed to do when someone dies, especially a parent. Honor thy mother and father and all that. It’s easier to forgive someone when the closure is one-sided. When you’re forced to make peace without their acknowledgment, their apology, or even their humanity in the process. At a certain point, forgiveness stops being about them at all. It becomes a reflection of you. Of whether you can carry the pain without letting it keep shaping your life.

The question isn’t whether they deserve it. It’s whether you’re willing to keep hurting long after they’re gone.

But what if they came back?

What would you say to someone that died, if they walked in the door, right now. Like nothing happened. Would you confront them about their humanity? About how they hurt you? Would it bring back the cycle of anger, of pain? I really started to think about this concept after reading The Dinner List by Rebecca Serle.

The book is 10 years old so I can spoil it right? The lead’s boyfriend dies. In a pretty traumatic way. Her brain processing the trauma, she experiences a dinner party her dream “list” of dinner guests, dead or alive. This includes Audrey Hepburn, her father that abandoned her in infancy, and of course - her dead boyfriend.

Through this dream-state, and being able to actually converse with her now past boyfriend, she stops seeing him as an angel. She accepts that their relationship was toxic, he was flawed, and she’s able to move on to heal the part of herself that was not able to let go of him.

What would you do if the person you need to let rest, and to forgive, was still alive? Would the closure come as easily? I didn’t expect this book to trigger me, but it sent me into a really dark hole about my own trauma and need for healing.

2025 was the most painful year of my life, not only because of my divorce but because of another goodbye in my life. Saying goodbye to my mother.

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Throwing away things I don’t want to, selling and donating things makes me so sad. I won’t lie. I thought I’d be settled and safe at this point in my life. I thought I’d have a partner sharing the mental load of life.

I recently had a friend remind me, while I vented to them like I am to you now, that I could have all that and… what?

“Having a spouse doesn’t guarantee they’ll make life easier… remember?”

How easy it is to forget. To assume life must just be easier for those coupled up, even though a year ago that was me. Wishing I had what I have now: total independence. No one controlling my every move. Living wherever the hell I want!

I wish my body could feel the excitement of positive change, but I’ve noticed it going into fight or flight whenever I start packing again. I guess that saying is true. Your body doesn’t know when it’s running from a bear, or when you’re turning off the electricity in your starting-over apartment.

I’m trying to be gentle with my body as I enter this next chapter, and I’m constantly reminding myself that change is a lot on our bodies physiologically.

And if I’m honest, I think we don’t talk enough about that part.

Everyone loves the inspirational version of starting over. The aesthetic of it. The Pinterest boards and TikToks about “reinventing your life.” The montages of someone cutting their hair, moving cities, buying a one-way ticket somewhere romantic.

But the reality is a lot less exciting.

It’s sitting on the floor surrounded by boxes you’re not sure you should keep. It’s calculating how many times you can restart before it stops feeling like bravery and starts feeling like exhaustion. It’s wondering if stability is something you build, or something you eventually age into.

And some days, it’s grief.

Grief for the version of your life you thought you were building. Grief for the timeline you imagined. Grief for the girl who thought by this age things would feel a little more… figured out.

But there’s also something else here. Something quieter.

Because underneath the grief, underneath the adrenaline and the nervous system chaos, there’s a small voice that keeps saying: you’re still doing it.

You’re still choosing your life.

Even when it’s messy. Even when it’s uncertain. Even when your body is begging you for stability.

And maybe that’s the real version of courage no one puts in the montages.

Not the leap.

The packing.

The courage to pick yourself up and do the damn thing.

And the shedding. Even though getting rid of things can feel sad, there is something cathartic about saying goodbye to the last remnants of my ex. I kept a lof of our shared furniture, kitchen utensils, etc. and am not taking them into my new environment. I won’t lie, saying goodbye to these items felt really good. I had a year to get closure around our shared things and the last bits of life as I romanticized it. It’s been tough to realize that my dream is a reality for other people, and they deserve to give a home to the things that I’m holding on to, but they’re actually experiencing!

Maybe life isn’t about getting it right the first time. Maybe it’s about having the courage to start again. Again and again if we have to. Not because we failed, but because we’re paying attention. Because we’re listening to the quiet voice inside that says this isn’t the life meant for you. Starting over isn’t glamorous, and it certainly isn’t easy, but maybe the real freedom in life is knowing we’re allowed to do it as many times as necessary.

So…where am I moving next!?

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I almost felt guilt hearing this. I felt like I was disappointing people, not being ready to date after divorce. I felt so violated. Everyone I trusted in my life (husband, in laws) turned out just to be an illusion. I felt so unsafe in my mind and my body. The idea of dating actually made me feel physically sick.

They say it takes two months per year of the relationship to grieve, and I found the year I spent mourning and healing from my relationship struck true. After six years with someone, I needed time to fully comprehend my new life. I still have moments where my brain can’t comprehend all the change I’ve experienced so quickly.

The journey feeling safe in my body again took a lot more work than I was expecting. Specifically around my weight. I’ve always maintained a weight of about 145 and had finally learned to accept that was my bodies happy place. I was also trying to conceive, and I knew that I needed to honor my bodies happy place even if I didn’t like how I looked.

Once the panic of the divorce set in, I lost weight drastically fast. I was so confused by this. Through the hardest moments of my life (including my father’s death), I joked that I could never understand the people that skipped meals, never losing weight no matter what.

The physical stress of being alive was my main focus at this time, and the energy it took to eat through my grief felt profoundly sad. I lost 20 pounds in a month. Sadly I really liked how my body looked. I told my husband I wanted to lose 20 pounds by the same time next year - who would’ve thought it would be so easy! At least one thing in my life wasn’t going to shit?

Until it was. My face started to look crazy, and I finally understood the meaning behind “ozempic face.” Even when not on it, the sudden shock of weight loss made my face look so hallow. Clumps of hair started falling out and my period stopped. Even as I settled into my new life, the weight wouldn’t come back on. I was eating 2,000+ calories a day and yet this was where my body wanted to be.

Then came the binging. I’ve never really talked about this but binge eating disorder has floated in and out of my life through periods of profound stress. I’d gotten it under control over the last several years but it was back now with a vengence. Was this how I was going to gain the weight back? Feeling completely out of control with my mind and body?

I gained about 10 pounds over thanksgiving, and knew I needed to make a serious change to understand why this was happening. I thought I healed! I was finally exiting the worst year ever, so why was my relationship with food so out of control?

I had to take a beat and realize I still had a lot of work to do around feeling safe in my body. Food became self soothing for me. I needed my stomach to feel completely full in order to feel secure, grounded in reality. I needed to have a distracting sensation to keep me from the pain in my life.

I’ve shared the practices that have helped with my healing journey in other Substack posts, but I found that journaling specifically helped the most with my relationship with food. I wrote down my thoughts that were out of control, and tried my best to identify why I was losing it. I needed to get to the core of this as it was becoming a compulsive behavior.

Through this work, I realized just how unsafe I sill felt in my body. I liked how I looked, should I feel guilty about it being a result of pain? I was scared to go back to my old body, which reminded me of my old life. I hated that I felt out of control with my thoughts and emotions and so much of myself not being where I wanted to be.

Day by day, the binging stopped - and my weight regulated. I’m 125 pounds, and have maintained that through healthy lifestyle changes of course, but mainly self work. I have very strict rituals and make time for myself to feel safe in my body. I make time to communicate with myself. I give myself check-ins to understand what’s triggering me and what I can do about it.

I knew this work would help with food…but I had no idea it would help with dating too. It made me realize that I am safe, I am in control, and everything I’ve panicked about with finding the perfect guy in a certain timeline is just stupid.

Everything good and magical in my life now is a bi-product of having faith and trusting God’s timing. Why should dating be any different? Friends, jobs, homes, have all come into my life when I needed them and the timing made sense when they happened - even if I got them in different ways than I expected or desired. I know that the right person will come into my life in the exact way he’s supposed to too.

Feeling safe in my body makes me feel so much more excited to have fun, meet people and….have that hoe era y’all keep encouraging me to try!?

More to come soon on that…

x, cora

But I’d argue that keeping my relationship with God deeply personal makes my faith even stronger. I’ve kept my relationship with God offline not because I was ashamed of my faith, but because I was afraid of how trolls would misconstrue it. My relationship with God is the most important in my life. I’m fiercely protective of the people in my life, and mostly keep them offline. I don’t want them to be subject to ridicule for one reason or another. Why should my relationship with God be any different.

However, I recognize that in such a hateful world it is different. Anyone can have a relationship with God, but often they see the worst examples of humanity as the core of Christianity. Fox news and the republican party especially love to use Jesus as a false idol for their own hateful agendas. As an influencer, I’ve watched every identity get flattened into a brand category or a political affiliation, and I didn’t want my belief in Jesus to become just another signal for people to sort me into a box.

Online, Christianity often feels less like a sacred practice and more like a talking point in the culture war, something to be optimized for engagement or weaponized for debate. My faith is the one thing I didn’t want filtered through an algorithm, reduced to a hot take, or turned into content for strangers to dissect in my comments. So I kept it private. Quiet. Practiced off camera, where it could still be relational instead of performative.

It felt safer to keep my faith private. But in this climate, silence starts to look like compliance. Sharing my faith now isn’t about proving anything or trying to convert anyone. It’s about inviting those interested to know that faith can come in unconventional boxes, and if they’re interested - invite them to start to develop that relationship in their own lives. If Christianity is being used as a political shorthand, then it matters that people see believers whose values lead them toward empathy, justice, and care for the marginalized, not just power. Speaking up is less about being public with my piety and more about being honest about what actually informs how I move through the world.

I’m a democrat. I believe in the rights of women over an unborn fetus. I believe in loving and supporting the marginalized among us. I believe in feeding the hungry. I believe in not judging others life circumstances before we help them. I believe in healthy adult relationships, no matter the gender of either participant. I believe in showing compassion for all creatures great and small. I might be crazy, but that sounds like Christianity to me. And yet, I promise you if I shared these thoughts on another social platform, they’d be ripped apart.

Having empathy and compassion doesn’t mean you invite turmoil into your own life, or don’t have healthy boundaries. It doesn’t mean you do whatever you want and ask for forgiveness later. I empathize with and fiercely love the choices others have made under their life circumstances, but it doesn’t mean I don’t uphold a framework of standards in my life. This is where I hesitate to share my faith and standards, because I operate my life in a way that I don’t want others to think I’m judging them for their own choices.

I guess on “paper,” I’m very intentional with how I move in the world. I don’t drink in excess, I’ve never done a drug in my life. I don’t have casual sex outside of committed relationships. You can do all the things “right” and still be a terrible Christian. Notice how nothing I listed above has anything to do with actually having faith, or being Christian. Where is the volunteering, the kindness, the commitment - listed in the above?

That’s my issue with performative internet Christians. They seem to believe that because on paper they hold themselves to a certain standard, they’re good people. And yet you constantly hear stories about the loudest among us cheating on their spouses, or stealing money from their churches. Make it make sense? I understand why non-believers see those with a hateful republican agenda praying the loudest on the news and think "of course they’re a bible thumper.”

My faith has given me permission to stay soft in a cruel world. It’s given me an anchor to hold onto that there’s something bigger than me and that my life and existence makes sense. It’s given me a guideline of pure love and compassion and how to be a good neighbor. It’s given me permission to try and fail, and get back up again. It’s helped me forgive those that have hurt me and not continue to sabotage my own life and happiness through my hatred for them. And most of all, it’s given me an anchor to hold onto during the darkest periods where I didn’t know I was going to survive.

TW: Suicidal Ideation.

I honestly didn’t know if I was going to make it through 2025. I share this apprehensively, as you may know my own experience losing a parent to suicide. For years I was so angry at my dad. How could he be so selfish? I was a senior in high school when he killed himself, literally thrown into adulthood with no parent to help or guide me as I tried to navigate the world. Did he not think I needed him? Did he not care about me now that I was an adult?

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“Have your hoe era!”

“PROMISE ME YOU’LL LIVE IT UP - I’M JEALOUS!”

Just a sampling of the many comments I received when I first announced my divorce. The announcement video went viral - over one million views. And with one million eyeballs on my next move, thousands of opinions on what I should do next.

I was in fight or flight. Have my hoe era? I couldn't even look strangers in the eye without getting flustered. I’d only had sex with my HUSBAND. Eat pray love era? How was I supposed to get on a plane to Bali when I hadn’t flown alone in seven years? Oh yeah. And I’m BROKE. Let me just make it even worse and hop across the world!

I admire people that are able to pick themselves up immediately after a traumatic life event. Whether that’s a death, divorce, or whatever life will inevitably throw our way. Me? Yeah. Not one of those people. Maybe I’m hyper-sensitive. Maybe I’m not resilient. But honestly? I think I’m normal. And I’m sure a lot of you are feeling the emotions I outlined above if navigating a major life change.

Maybe this is a hot take but I think a lot of people are running away from facing their darkest demons. They keep things moving, they keep going, they have meaningless sex and drown themselves in drugs or alcohol, and they’re rarely in silence.

And why? Because having to face your darkest thoughts is a terrifying prospect.

So, instead of taking all the unsolicited advice from strangers not really invested in my well-being, I did the opposite.

I took a year, in silence.

I packed up my entire life, took my two dogs, and moved back to my hometown of Temecula, California. If unfamiliar with the Southern California geography - Temecula is a sleepy wine town nestled between Orange County and San Diego. Not much happens here. Most people complain it’s boring, and most businesses close around 9pm.

Which made it perfect for facing my shadow self.

I chose my hometown for a few reasons, but mainly because I needed to heal childhood wounds to ensure I didn’t continue toxic patterns in relationships. The saying “you date what you know” became so true for me.

My childhood was riddled with emotional, physical, and mental abuse. Maybe I’ll talk about it someday, but my siblings have expressed that they’d like our parents behavior kept offline for now as they are also navigating healing these wounds as private citizens. I choose to post my life online, they do not. I can absolutely respect that.

When I previously thought of Temecula, I was filled with memories of trauma. Trauma of things experienced, and also unexperienced. Of parents who did not want to be burdened with me, or allowing me to experience joy in life. I thought of all the school activities and field trips I missed, and all the pain I subsequently felt for not being allowed to attend things.

I was constantly in trouble, for reasons that still puzzle my siblings, extended family, and I. For context I had my first drink at 21. I went to my first party senior year of college. I lost my virginity to my HUSBAND. A bad kid? Yeah. Sure.

I started self isolating, and self punishing, sending myself to my room and losing myself in books. I made my room a safe space because I was always forced in there at some point in the night. I was told to accept that our family “just didn’t celebrate birthdays, do gifts, or do I really have to take you to that?” My existence was a chore to a checked out parent.

This was a pattern I repeated in my marriage. I chose an emotionally unavailable partner who abandoned me. I shut down when he didn’t want to do things, especially those that were important to me. I agreed when he didn’t want to visit my family, go to restaurants I enjoyed, and got a second job at a bar that I could ‘get over’ because it made him happy.” I convinced myself that no one liked me, no one wanted to be my friend, and that the only person I could rely on was myself.

I became so isolated in the Bay Area I became codependent on my husband. I felt like I had no say over anything. I convinced myself that he was my safe space. That his decisions made sense, and I couldn’t trust my own self or my own emotions. Whether that was from being in a controlling relationship, or having deep childhood wounds (or both), I knew this was a loneliness I couldn’t bare to repeat in my life. And looking in the mirror, the internal pain I was experiencing wasn’t reflected there. I was young, beautiful, vibrant. So why was I living like an 80 year old barely leaving the house and in so much emotional pain.

Facing the place where the majority of this trauma took place was necessary. If a therapist asked me why I self isolated, I knew on the surface. But I couldn’t get to the root of why I had the internal self belief of why I was unworthy and why I continuously retreated to partners that made me feel that way.

Without exposing my family drama online, what I will say is that people rarely change. Facing the people that did the most damage, and the places where it took place was the purest form of exposure therapy I could’ve imagined. I don’t know that I’d recommend this, as it was extraordinarily painful, but it helped me finally get to the core of wounds I’d be avoiding for years and fully understand why I continued to repeat the patterns.

Here are a few things I learned from my year in isolation, in the place that hurt me the most - so you can bypass this chapter in your own life, or take the tools and leave the rest.

Facing your fears is only possible when you feel regulated. I had to learn tools to physically self regulate through extreme chaos. I couldn’t self retreat into safety every time life got hard. Understanding how fractured my nervous system was also made me feel so much peace about not being ready to take big leaps like going to Bali or having casual sex. I actually backed out of a Spain trip with my company because I was getting such debilitating anxiety about it. Look, it makes sense. You can’t teach someone to ride a bike then send them on PCH on in crazy traffic the next day.

Instead of forcing myself to do things others would do, I focused on more attainable, yet new experiences I knew I could handle that would still bring me a feeling of success. I went on-low key, micro trips with friends and family in the United States, like staying with my best friend in Nashville. I learned that a win is a win, no matter how small. But to celebrate them in a big way. Feeling success provides a feeling of momentum, and makes you feel like you’re accomplishing something.

@coralakeyThe most beautiful property in Tennessee. @Southall Farm + Inn 📍 Franklin, TN #franklintn #getaway #staycation #southhallfarmandinn #nashvillethingstodo

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The importance of routine and systems. One of my favorite concepts outlined in Atomic Habits is that you are only as effective as the systems you create. I’ve found this especially critical with healing. Find three things that are healthy habits and that make you feel better, and force yourself to practice them until they become routine. For me, these things were meditating, journaling, and exercising. I forced myself to do these things as if they were common place activities like brushing my teeth.

Stop comparing your healing journey to others, or to your past self. Accept where you are in life, radically. Accept it as a chapter. The pain you’re currently in does not have to be the rest of your life, but it’s where you are now. How can you make the most of this time, no matter how shitty to come out on the other side stronger and wiser?

And lastly, learning your attachment type. I really thought attachment types were bullshit until I dived into understanding mine. I highly recommend this podcast episode for a great analysis of what attachment types can do to ourselves, and our relationships:

Spoiler alert - I’m a fearful avoidant. Accepting this, and learning how to heal past wounds associated with this type has been incredibly beneficial to my healing, and the relationships I currently have and am seeking romantically.

In conclusion - do you really have to spend a year in isolation to heal yourself? No. Did it help me understand myself better, unlock childhood trauma I’d been avoiding, and break these patterns? Yes. However, I cannot emphasize enough that this was the most painful and exposing experience of my life. Though I’m keeping offline, I had to meet my shadow self multiple times in order to make peace with her. If you aren’t determined to better your life, you can easily fall victim to this chapter. I’m thankful that I was able to make it through, but I know many aren’t able to. A year in isolation not only gave me empathy for those who aren’t able to pull themselves out of the darkness, but also for myself. I’ve been through so much, in such a short period of life. I’m proud of overcoming this. And I hope these tools can help you, if you find yourself in the darkness tonight, too.

Until next week.

x, cora

Do you agree or disagree??

“It must be so nice.” My friend, who works a traditional corporate role laments to me.

“What is?” I can’t really fathom what’s nice about anything at this time. It’s January 2025, a month since I left my husband. We can’t speak anymore, tensions too high. I’m frantically attempting to pack up my life, figuring out next steps.

“You’re living my dream!” she beams at me. I mean, literally beams. I can almost feel the rainbow and sparkles radiating off of her. “Quitting your corporate job, taking the world by storm, giving it to the man, mountains of free makeup? I mean, seriously, when’s the last time you stepped foot in Sephora?”

I have to avert my gaze, overwhelmed by this perception of my life. Do I go with it? Do I let my friend live in the fantasy that I’m some rich influencer that, because of the “power” and “station” online, was able to bump off my shitty ex-husband and quit my shitty job?

Her half-glass-full heart is too pure to break.

“Yeah,” I smile. “I guess I am pretty lucky.” What she doesn’t know? I’d do anything for her stable income. Her tech company benefits. Her unlimited PTO. But she thinks I’m lucky?

Look, I am lucky. Compared to so many other women in my position, I can’t complain. I have no kids, no financial abuse in my divorce. I insisted we keep our money separate (we’ll get into that). We split the bills exactly down the middle, 50/50 (as the Venmo requests I got for fast food often reminded me). This should be a clean, simple, easy divorce. I should be able to pick my life up, ride my influencer income until the papers are signed, then jet into the sunset on the next Trippin With Tarte brand trip.

I think if people truly understood the logistics of how content creation income works, and how little you’re paid for the amount of work required, they would be stunned.

So… let me stun you! I’ll be sharing exactly how much I make as an influencer with 150,000+ followers, and how I was left completely broke after my divorce.

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