How to Manifest Relationships in Life with Madisen

Madisen is the founder of Better Half to Whole, which provides online resources and support for the recently divorced. Whether you’re trying to manifest relationships with a new love or friend group, or simply return to your sense of self after a divorce, she has resources to help!

Meet Madisen from Better Half to Whole

About a year and a half ago I started a company called Better Half to Whole, and I provide online resources and support for the recently divorced. This is everything from downloadable guides to one-on-one sessions with me, and I’m in the process of putting together an online course that people could go through on their own really to help guide them in the early days after divorce because there’s not a ton of resources that are for your practical life.

Of course, there’s therapy, and there’s coaching, but there’s not a lot around your practical everyday life other than Google telling you to get a hobby, talk to your friends, don’t ignore your feelings, etc. which is really not helpful.

Overcoming Past Relationships

I got divorced in 2018 and I was right before I turned 30, so I was pretty young to be getting divorced. I was also one of the first in my family and friend group. I felt like I had the support I needed in therapy to help me process what had happened, but there wasn’t direction for how to actually live my life as a newly divorced person.

There just wasn’t a lot of acknowledgment around how your entire social experience or my entire social experience shifted and changed all of my friendships, the way people responded to me, what I said, or when people would ask me, “How are you?” And then to say, “I’m actually horrible,” or “I’m super heartbroken,” or they would ask, “Where’s your ex-husband?” But they didn’t know he was my ex-husband until I said, “oh yeah, we got divorced six months ago.”

And then just the shock people are like, what? I didn’t know. So I really created Better Half to Whole to be the resources that I wish I would have had to help me not feel as alone and as isolated as I did during those past experiences. I have heard from lots of people who’ve gone through divorce as well.

It’s super isolating unless you’ve gone through it. People can commiserate with you or want to be there and support you, but unless they’ve had that shared experience, they don’t really get it. That’s part of what I’m providing is validation for the experience language. How do you talk about your situation? What do you say when someone is like, “I’m sorry,” and you’re like, “This is good news.”

Making Positive Changes to Manifest Relationships

One important step that I didn’t realize when I was doing it, but I started a pretty comprehensive daily gratitude practice. And it was a way for me to remind myself that my life didn’t totally suck in all areas. I also didn’t want the divorce to become my entire personality and the only thing I could think about and the only thing I could talk about. The gratitude practice was really big for me and it helped me pay attention to creating my dream life and manifest relationships and not just to the pain in my physical reality.

So I would say that was one of the first things that was a huge tool for me. When you’re going through grief or a hard time, it can feel a little annoying for a lot of people to be like, “Well, it could be worse” or “You should be grateful”, and you’re like, “Go away.” People say those kinds of things, but it’s not something I shared with other people. It was just for me, and that part was huge.

I also pretty much pulled out all the stops on self-care. I did everything I could afford to connect myself back to my body. So I spent time on things like massage, exercise, acupuncture, breathing, and movement. All of those things helped me come back here because I was so dissociated from my body I was trying to survive by doing the inner work.

Sharing Your Journey at the Right Time

And then I was also honest about my situation. I didn’t give everyone every little nitty detail. This was partially because, at the end of the marriage, I was asked not to share by my ex-husband. He’s like, “Please don’t tell people what we’re going through.” And so I was actively hiding that anything was going on.

When we finally divorced, I didn’t scream from the rooftops about my experience. However, if people asked me how I was, I didn’t hide that I was having a hard time. The first step was that I had a handful of go-to people that I knew I could talk to. So really what I say in some of my programming is the next most important thing is mobilizing your support system. Identify the people you can trust for honest conversations, knowing they won’t resort to simply bashing your ex, which is something I chose to avoid.

That felt like such a waste of energy. It was important for me to heal and figure my own stuff out. I didn’t really want to talk about him anymore. Having those people in place and then using my voice when I didn’t want to be by myself. On my first anniversary, I said to my brother, “Can I just come sit on your couch and cry and watch a movie? You don’t have to talk to me or hang out with me. You don’t even have to be in the room with me. I just want to not be alone today.” Those are some of the main things I would say.

Gratitude: A Powerful Tool to Overcoming Limiting Beliefs

So my gratitude practice has evolved, and I still do have gratitude, like a gratitude list. And that I think really helped me manifest relationships in a powerful way. I dunno what happened in my brain. The gratitude practice that I had when I was going through the early days of my divorce helped me to pay attention to my whole life. It was boring some days. It was literally the same 10 things from the day before because I was so emotionally exhausted.

I was like, “Well, I have a job, I have clean water, I have a house.” Those types of things helped me pay attention and shift my belief system to have more positive energy. But now I still do keep a gratitude journal, but it’s not quite as extensive as it was. It’s now what I call abundance flows. Those are paying attention to all of the gifts from the universe or gifts from people, or it’s a discount or a free coffee, or a friend of mine is a yoga teacher and she has the capability to give people yoga class credits. So she’s giving me a couple of classes.

There’s the gratitude, but then also paying attention to how many wonderful things are in my life or how many gifts are coming in. I think that’s been a more exciting way to express gratitude because it feels like, “Oh, what presents am I going to get today?” Instead of just acknowledging what is, it’s more expectant that I can manifest relationships, friendships, and other gifts from the universe.

Moving Forward From a Place of Wholeness to Manifest Relationships

I had to move forward with the acceptance that I couldn’t change what had happened. I was now in a position of having to make all new choices for my life. The plan I had was totally blown to pieces. When I started to try to move forward, and think about what I wanted when I manifest relationships, I had to learn what I wanted because I thought I had it and then I didn’t.

Then it was like, “Well, what do I want now?” I got connected more closely and intimately with my friendships and with my family. There was this major shift in all of my relationships. I had been super independent before, which I think was hyper-independence as a trauma response. This made me feel like I could survive on my own after I had gone through my divorce.

There was this totally new appreciation for the power of a loving relationship and connection and I wanted that to also be present in my future relationship. So I had to get connected to myself. I didn’t know myself, so how did I ever expect anyone to connect to me or know me when I didn’t know myself?

Identifying What You Want in New Love

I’d gone through years and years of talk therapy and felt like, “Okay, well I don’t want any of that old stuff, so what do I want from my ideal relationship? What kind of love do I want in my life?”

The acceptance piece was so valuable. I realized how valuable other relationships were in my life and then figured out who I was or who I wanted to be to manifest relationships in the future. I do love partnerships and want to be in relationships of all kinds with people.

Tapping Into Self-Love to Manifest a Healthy Relationship

I have had a pretty recent shift in myself as far as dating goes. I was married, got divorced, and then was in a relationship for almost five years. We were engaged and broke up last summer. I just got the green light from my therapist to start dating again. But what has been a huge shift for me is knowing my deepest desires about what kind of relationship DO I want, and then holding to that.

I want to have kids, so I’m not going to date anyone that doesn’t want to have kids. This makes those yeses and nos come a lot quicker. This makes it easier to have a clear yes or no because I am clear on what I want.

How Personal Growth Can Help You Overcome a Limiting Pattern

In a recent interaction with someone, he said something and I felt totally shut down, and I noticed it. I chose not to think “I must have said something silly” or “he didn’t like what I said.” I framed it as “that behavior that he had was a turnoff. That behavior doesn’t make me feel safe or seen.”

I’m in the early days of being open to dating people again, but approaching it and not like, “Oh my gosh, I hope all of these people like me.” I’ve decided that I’m going to be who I am. I’m going to find the one that likes me and not try to shift and change who I am to be what I think this other person wants.” I’m clear on myself so that when we meet it’s clear for both of us.

On Feeling Worthy of Love

One way I can learn to feel supported in my romantic relationship is by referencing other examples of where I have felt that. Other relationships or friendships are a good reference point for your love life, even when you’re starting out. These relationships can help define your wants and needs in the early stages of finding great love.

It reminds me of the emotion wheel where it’s like, “What’s your vocabulary for how you feel or what you want?” Let’s start somewhere. “I want to feel good in a relationship or in a friendship.” It’s like, okay, well when have you felt good in a relationship? It’s like, “well, when we laugh.” This indicates that you want to have a shared sense of humor. You want to feel levity in your relationship or you want somebody to think you’re funny.

I would say that is really the starting point is to see if you have other reference points. Not necessarily in a romantic relationship, but in any relationship. Some places you may find other reference points are:

• Interactions with strangers. This can be asking for someone’s opinion on something you’ve tried on and they give it to you;
• Strangers you are observing and seeing how they interact with one another;
• Seeing how people interact in media and examples of a supportive romantic partner there.

Trusting Your Body to Help You Find Your Dream Partner

I think that in regard to relationships after heartbreak, you need to give yourself time to understand what you’re feeling. You don’t have to stay there, but the best way is to know what you have felt. Then, you can know how you want to feel in the future. Once those things are in your life, that feeling is familiar. It feels like, “Oh, yes, I know I want to feel this way in a relationship.”

Focus on expressing yourself directly, such as saying, “This person makes me feel seen, appreciated, or cared for.” Clarify the type of relationship you want so you can recognize it when the right person enters your life. You also have to do some testing. You want to see, “Is this person a vibrational match?” “Do I like that kind of person?” “Do I like the way they talk about X, Y, or Z? Or do I like the way they’re present with me?”

Learning What Relationships Take in Real Life

You need to learn how things feel in your body. So many of us don’t have functional examples of healthy relationships with romantic love to reference. When we’re learning what that looks like or feels like in our lives, we have to give ourselves time to identify what those things are, because relationships are also effort.

Depending on how you grew up, it was like “true love is easy,” or “when you manifest relationships, if they’re good should be easy.” And I just think that’s wrong. I think they can have ease, but they still require your effort and your presence. Even a relationship with your ideal partner requires something of you. And it’s not all easy all the time. And I think that equating everything being easy has done a disservice to people who manifest relationships.

How to Have Madisen as Your Relationship Coach

I am most active on my Instagram, which is Better Half to Whole. You can also find everything on my website, which is betterhalftowhole.com

There’s freebies like how to get through wedding season and the Very Unmarried holiday guide: how to navigate when you’re not feeling super cheery.

I designed the Loved One’s Guide for Friends and Family Supporting the Divorcing to provide a clear resource for those helping someone through divorce. When they feel unsure about how to help, they can use this guide for direction.